Call for Expressions of Interest to apply for a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship
Deadline: 10.03.2025
Publisert
BI Norwegian Business School is ranked as Norway’s #1 business school and one of the best in Europe. With more than 20.000 students, 1000 employees and 300.000 alumni, it is also one of the largest and most influential business schools in Europe. BI is considered the main provider of business education in Norway, offering a diverse and comprehensive portfolio of bachelor’s, master’s, PhD and executive study programmes and courses. Our different partnerships and collaborations with leading Norwegian and international companies, organisations and institutions further enhance the quality of our study programmes. Towards 2030, BI aims to deliver knowledge that truly makes a difference through world-class research and outstanding learning experiences, giving businesses the knowledge to succeed and people the opportunity to build meaningful careers.
Call for Expressions of Interest to apply for a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship focused on Inner Development Goals (IDGs) at BI Norwegian Business School, Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
Deadline for Expressions of Interest: 10 March 2025
The Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour at BI Norwegian Business School (BI) currently invites researchers outside of Norway to apply for a two-year EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF). This highly regarded fellowship gives candidates the opportunity to pursue a two-year research project as part of the department and under the supervision of an experienced professor within the field.
Eligible candidates must hold a PhD, have a maximum of 8 years of research experience from the time the PhD was awarded, and cannot have lived or worked in Norway for 12 months or more over the past three years.
About the Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour
The Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour has its core competence within organizational psychology, management of change, organization management, and project management. It is divided into three faculty groups: Leadership, change and sustainability, project management, and organizational psychology. The department places emphasis on the interaction between research and teaching. For faculty members, this means publishing in top academic journals, while also communicating their research in their teaching. The department delivers teaching at all academic levels, and offers courses in most of BI’s study programmes, including Executive Master of Management, MSc, EMBA, PhD and Bachelor of Management. It is currently home to approximately 47 full-time academic faculty and 7 PhD students.
Candidate qualifications
We are actively seeking candidates who possess interdisciplinary expertise in cognitive, clinical, and social psychology, neuroscience, human resource development, education and learning sciences, leadership and organizational studies, sustainability, or related fields. This call is for the two-year EU-funded MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF-2025). The selected candidates will engage in pioneering research that intersects Inner Development Goals (IDGs) with the aims of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The work under this fellowship will address a critical gap in current research—the application and understanding of IDGs, which are essential to enhancing the success of global initiatives aimed at implementing the SDGs. There is a profound need to explore how emotional intelligence, mindfulness, empathy, and reflective practices can be systematically integrated into broader collective development strategies. Engagement with this research will position the MSCA fellow at the forefront of creating sustainable solutions for pressing global challenges in education, healthcare, and workforce effectiveness. The fellows will contribute to new strategies that not only enhance individual well-being but also bolster social equality, economic growth, and build resilient communities. This fellowship offers candidates a unique opportunity to contribute to significant cross-disciplinary research and make a real impact on global societal advancement by turning inner development goals into powerful tools for collective change.
The successful candidate will be supervised by Associate Professor Petra Kipfelsberger. Petra Kipfelsberger brings a profoundly interdisciplinary approach to research, encompassing management, psychology, leadership, ethics, and organizational behaviour. Her acclaimed work includes internationally recognized research on personality development through coaching, featured in Forbes, and studies on resisting temptation for sustainable consumption. Contributing significantly to societal change, she collaborates with a world-leading research team led by Prof. Avraham Kluger on powerful listening interventions. These scholarly pursuits complement her prior leadership role at Siemens AG, where she co-developed an award-winning onboarding program, and her advocacy for purposeful business practices as a board member of the IGNITE movement. She also specializes in the concepts of Viktor E. Frankl's logotherapy, which could provide profound insights into human inclination for the search for meaning, complementing the focus on Inner Development Goals (IDGs). Kipfelsberger’s integrated approach is ideal for supervising MSCA-PF fellows focused on Inner Development Goals, ensuring the translation of research into sustainable global strategies.
Application procedure
With this call for Expressions of Interest, we invite candidates to submit an initial two-page outline of their proposed project and a CV to research@bi.no by 10 March 2025.
The project outline must include a brief description of:
the purpose of the project, including the hypothesis or central research question that the project seeks to test/answer
why it is important to undertake this research, including how the project contributes to the state-of-the-art
what research methodology and approach will be used
the complementary between the candidate and supervisor, including what skills/qualifications the supervisor brings to the project, and why BI is an appropriate host institution
Based on the proposals received, selected candidates will be invited for full application development, including participating in the MSCA-PF Master Class hosted by BI.
Selected candidates will develop their MSCA-PF applications in collaboration with their BI supervisor and with the support of the team for external financing at BI. The final proposal will be submitted online by the MSCA-PF deadline on 10 September 2025.
Timeline
10 March 2025: Deadline for candidates to submit initial proposal to BI
Late March 2025: Selected candidates are invited to continue in the application process
Late April: MSCA-PF Master Class (digital workshop for the selected candidates and the supervisors)
10 September 2025: MSCA-PF application deadline
January/February 2026: Results are made public
Spring/Summer/Autumn 2026: If awarded funding, MSCA-PF at BI begins
For more information about the MSCA-PF funding scheme and the application process at BI, contact research@bi.no.
Interested candidates should contact Petra Kipfelsberger at petra.kipfelsberger@bi.no for questions regarding the topic of their project proposal.
About BI
BI is an independent, not-for-profit foundation, whose sole purpose is teaching and research. BI is the main provider of research-based knowledge in the business and management disciplines in Norway. Since its founding in 1943, BI has focused on bridging the gap between academia and practice. The school’s strategy for 2025 is “Shaping people and business for an international, digital and sustainable future”. BI has approximately 20,000 students and 430 academic staff, including over 70 doctoral students. The research faculty is organized into nine separate departments, with research centres dedicated to business administration, marketing, finance, and general management. With accreditations from AACSB (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) and AMBA (The Association of MBAs), BI is a "Triple Crown" school. BI has extensive support for faculty, such as a highly professional and modern library and a Learning Resource Centre for research and teaching support. There are well-equipped research laboratories and a faculty club to facilitate the transfer and application of knowledge.
