Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

With about 17,500 students, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences is one of the largest higher education institutions in Norway. A broad range of academic programmes are offered at Bachelor, Master and PhD levels, spread out on five campuses in Førde, Sogndal, Bergen, Stord og Haugesund.

Our ambition is to build stronger and more solid academic and research environments that will interact nationally and internationally. The aim is to become a recognized actor on the international higher education arena. Increased international cooperation and engagement in externally funded projects will work towards this goal.

With effect from 1.January 2024, a new faculty was established at HVL, which is the result of a merger of the current Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences.

The Faculty of Technology, Environmental and Social Sciences has approximately 5 500 students and over 500 full-time employees distributed between campuses in Sogndal, Førde, Bergen and Haugesund. The faculty has a wide range of education at both bachelor's and master's level within engineering and natural sciences, economic and administrative subjects, maritime subjects, social sciences and the humanities, in addition to PhD courses in computer technology, responsible innovation and regional development and in nautical operations.

The Department of Computer Technology, Electrical Technology and Science has around 950 students and 140 employees in Bergen, Førde and Haugesund. The department is responsible for bachelor's courses in information technology and engineering courses in automation with robotics, computer technology, electrical power engineering, electronics and communication technology, in addition to teaching mathematics, physics and statistics in the engineering courses at the faculty, as well as preparatory courses for the engineering courses. The institute also has two master's programmes, one in applied computer technology and engineering and one in software development together with the University of Bergen. In addition, the institute is responsible for the doctoral program in computer technology.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Technology, Environmental and Social Sciences has an open position as a post-doctoral researcher in Formal Methods for Business Process Modelling for a period of two years

Project and duties of the post

This exciting position is part of the Norwegian Research Council Young Research Talents project CROFLOW (Enabling Highly Automated Cross-Organisational Workflow Planning). The goal of the project is to develop an innovative model-driven methodology and framework that facilitates planning business process with highly automated analyses and tool support.

Cross-organisational workflows involve multiple concurrently running business processes, each of which consists of multiple workflows within an organisation, or across various organisations. While tasks in these individual workflows may run independently in parallel, there are very often dependencies between them, e.g., execution orders or shared resources, which makes planning such workflows particularly challenging and error prone. Such complications could eventually lead to substantial negative impacts on financially- and safety-critical workflows. The project aims to leverage various techniques in formal methods to model and analyse cross-organisational workflows in terms of concurrent programs, and to automate workflow revisioning upon changes in the dependencies.

For this specific position, we are interested in developing a framework allowing highly automated workflow modelling and planning based on the orchestration of static analyses and dynamic refactoring of the workflow models. The prospective postdoctoral researcher should be interested in formal modelling for concurrent programs, with the application on concurrent workflow models. Together with the other project members and external partners, the researcher will contribute to the project from the perspectives including automating the planning and dynamic refactoring of cross-organisational workflows.

The postdoctoral researcher will have the possibility to collaborate with the external project partners of CROFLOW, including Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Uppsala University in Sweden and the University of Lübeck in Germany.

Research environment

The postdoctoral researcher will be associated to Software Engineering (SE) research group at HVL. The research group currently includes 10 professors and associate professors, 12 PhD candidates, and a large number of master’s students. The research group focuses on the foundations of model-driven software engineering, software verification, concurrent program analysis, within areas such as complex simulation systems, process and workflow modelling, protocols, and embedded systems. The group is involved in research projects in the areas of business workflow analysis and verification, healthcare, embedded systems, robotics and industrial automation, internet-of-things and cloud computing, application of machine learning, automotive software systems, and IT security. The research group has cooperation with many national and international research groups, and with national and regional industry partners.

The postdoctoral research fellow will be provided with work expense funding which can be used for conference participation, research visits, and equipment. The place of employment is Campus Bergen.

The position as post-doctoral researcher is available for a period of two years, with the possibility of an extension for up to one year dependent on further funding from the Norwegian Research Council.

Qualifications:

The successful applicant must have earned a PhD degree in informatics/computer science/software engineering or have submitted the PhD thesis before the application deadline. It is a condition of employment that the PhD has been awarded. 

The scientific profile must cover one or more of the following areas:

• foundations of software engineering, in particular software verification, program analysis and/or formal modelling
• event-recording automata, automata learning and/or process mining
• software engineering tools and methodology, including model-driven software engineering and verification

In addition to the required educational background and scientific profile, the following criteria will be evaluated:

• Publication track record, quality of publications, ability to lead the writing of research papers
• Quality and relevance of the PhD thesis
• Ability to work in the intersection of theoretical and applied research
• Practical software engineering skills and experience from industrial collaboration
• Oral and written communication skills in English

The ability to start the position timely after the project start (01. April 2024) will be considered an advantage when candidates are ranked due to the short time frame of the project.

The engagement is to be made in accordance with the regulations in force concerning State Employees and Civil Servants, and the acts relating to Control of the Export of Strategic Goods, Services and Technology. Candidates who by assessment of the application and attachment are seen to conflict with the criteria in the latter law will be prohibited from recruitment to HVL.

Application procedure:

Applications will be evaluated by an expert panel of three members.

Applicants are asked to submit their application and CV online. Please use the link “Apply for this job” (“Søk stillingen”).

The following documentation should be uploaded as an attachment to the online application:

• cover letter (statement of motivation, summarizing scientific work and research interest)
• a copy of the PhD thesis
• a CV including publication list
• up to five selected publications
• copies of educational certificates, academic transcript of records
• names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)

If the documents submitted are not in a Scandinavian language or in English, the applicants must submit certified translations of these. The transcripts must specify the topics and the course works. 

Applicant whose education is from another country than Norway, need to also attach a certified translation of the diploma and transcript of grades to English or a Scandinavian language, if the original is not in any of these languages. Applicants should note that the evaluation will be based on the documentation submitted electronically via Jobbnorge within the submission deadline. The applicants are responsible for ensuring that all the documentation is submitted before the closing date. It is of utmost importance that all publications to be considered in the evaluation are uploaded as an attachment with the application, since these are sent electronically to the expert panel. Applications cannot be sent by e-mail or to individuals at the college.

Salary:

• Good occupational pension, insurance and loan schemes from The Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund
• Exciting academic environment with the possibility of competence enhancement and development
• Opportunities for training within the working hours 

Initial salaries will be offered at code 1352 - postdoctor in the Civil Service pay grade table scale.

There is a compulsory 2 % deduction to the pension fund (see http://www.spk.no for more information). The successful applicant must comply with the guidelines that apply to the position at any time.

General information:

The appointment will be made in accordance with the regulations for State employees Law in Norway ("Lov om statens ansatte)". Organizational changes and changes in the duties and responsibilities associated with the position must be expected.

State employment shall reflect the multiplicity of the population at large to the highest possible degree. Western Norway University of Applied Sciences has therefore adopted a personnel policy objective to ensure that we achieve a balanced age and gender composition and the recruitment of persons of various ethnic backgrounds.

Information about the applicant may be made public even though the applicant has requested not to be named in the list of applicants. The applicant will be notified if his/her request is not respected.

Short-listed applicants will be called in for an interview.

Employed on condition that you are granted a work and residence permit (must be considered individually).

Western Norway University of Applied Sciences is subjected to the regulation for export control system. The regulation will be applied in the processing of the applications. 

Contacts:

1) Assistant Head of Department Pål Ellingsen phone: +47 55 58 76 02 email: Pal.Ellingsen@hvl.no

2) Associat Professor Violet Ka I Pun phone: +47 55 58 70 84 email: Violet.Ka.I.Pun@hvl.no 

Apply for this job