The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest rated institution of research and education with 26 500 students and 7 200 employees. Its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally esteemed research communities make UiO an important contributor to society.
Department of Biosciences (IBV) is one of nine departments at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Research in the department is organized in five sections covering topics within biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology, cell biology, genetics, aquatic biology, toxicology, ecology, and evolutionary biology.
The Department also operates Finse research station, the Biological research station in Drøbak and UiO's research vessel. Education across these topics is offered for around 300 bachelor, 170 master, and 75 PhD students. With 48 permanent professors/associate professors, post-docs, researchers, technical, and administrative personnel, the Department has a total staff of 260 from more than 30 different countries. The Department aims to maintain high international standards within both research and teaching. The new bachelor program in bioscience is the first of its kind to include programming and computational modelling as core elements.
About the position
We invite applications for a PhD Research Fellow position in functional genomics available at the Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo.
Starting date no later than August 1, 2026.The fellowship period is three years.
A fourth year maybe considered and it will involve 25 percent of other career-promoting work. Other career-promoting work may consist of teaching, supervision, and/or research assistance. This is dependent upon the qualification of the applicant and the current needs of the department.
No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.
Place of work is Department of Biosciences at Blindern, Oslo.
Job description
The PhD will be hired on the project "HotSpot: Stress-induced mutations in evolution" funded by the NFR and led by William Reinar. The HotSpot project investigates how environmental stress biases the genomic mutation landscape and how these biases may influence evolution.
The recruited PhD candidate will be involved in the work package Genome dynamics of stress-induced mutagenesis and will investigate how heat stress impacts Arabidopsis thaliana genome dynamics. The PhD candidate will generate omics (RNA-seq and PacBio CiFi) and phenotypic data from experimentally evolved Arabidopsis thaliana lines and perform integrative analyses of these data to advance our understanding of transient and heritable changes in a plant system under stress.
The project provides an excellent opportunity for the candidate to conduct high-impact research facilitating pursual of further academic and/or commercial ambitions within plant sciences after project completion. The work will be conducted in labs and facilities connected to the Department of Biosciences, UiO, which is planned to re-locate to the new Life Science Building in 2026/2027.
What skills are important in this role?
The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition to be among Europe’s leading communities for research, education and innovation. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.
Required qualifications:
Hands-on experience with molecular biology techniques, such as DNA/RNA extraction and PCR.
Basic knowledge of handling sequence data from RNA-seq or other NGS-based approaches.
Experience with data analysis in Python/R.
Experience with experimental work on plants or other eukaryotic organisms in laboratory or field settings.
Master’s degree or equivalent in biology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, ecology, evolution, or related fields
Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system
Fluent oral and written communication skills in English
Desired qualifications:
Experience with high-performance cluster environments.
Experience with organism-level experiments such as common garden experiments or similar.
Familiarity and interest in 3D-genomics.
Language requirement:
Good oral and written communication skills in English
English requirements for applicants from outside of EU/ EEA countries and exemptions from the requirements
Grade requirements:
The norm is as follows:
The average grade point for courses included in the Bachelor’s degree must be C or better in the Norwegian educational system
The average grade point for courses included in the Master’s degree must be B or better in the Norwegian educational system
The Master’s thesis must have the grade B or better in the Norwegian educational system
The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree. For more information see here.
All candidates and projects will have to undergo a check versus national export, sanctions and security regulations. Candidates may be excluded based on these checks. Primary checkpoints are the Export Control regulation, the Sanctions regulation, and the national security regulation.
What are we looking for in you?
We are looking for a person with a positive attitude that can work independently and that can take responsibility for experimental planning and execution. The person should have the ambition and drive to conduct high-quality research.
Employment in the position is based on a comprehensive assessment of all qualification requirements applicable to the position, including personal qualifications.
Membership in the Statens Pensjonskasse, which is one of Norway's best pension schemes with beneficial mortgages and good insurance schemes
Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities
Salary in position as PhD Research Fellow, position code 1017 in salary range NOK from 550 800 - 595 000, depending on competence and experience. From the salary, 2 percent is deducted in statutory contributions to the State Pension Fund
We need different perspectives in our work
UiO is an open and internationally oriented comprehensive university that strives to be an inclusive and diverse workplace and academic environment. You can read more about UiO’s work on equality, inclusion, and diversity at uio.no.
We fulfill our mission most effectively when we draw upon our variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. We are looking for great colleagues, could you be the next one?
We will do our best to accommodate your needs. Relevant adjustments may include modifications to working hours, task adaptations, digital, technical, or physical adjustments, or other practical measures.
If you have an immigrant background, a disability, or CV gaps (Norwegian), we encourage you to indicate this in the job application portal. We always invite at least one qualified candidate from each group for an interview. In this context, disability is defined as an applicant who identifies as having a disability that requires workplace or employment-related accommodations. For more details about the requirements, please refer to the Employer portal (Norwegian).
The selections made in the job application portal are used for anonymized statistics that all state employers include in their annual reports. More information about gender equality initiatives at UiO can be found here. We hope you will apply for the position with us.
How to apply
The application must include:
Cover letter - statement of motivation and research interests, and a description of relevant skills (max 1 page)
CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work - scientific publications)
Copies of the original Bachelor and Master’s degree diploma and transcripts of records (see below)
Documentation of English proficiency if applicable
List of publications and academic work that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)
Application with attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system Jobbnorge, click "Apply for this job".
Foreign applicants should attach an official explanation of their University's grading system.
When applying for the position, we ask you to retrieve your education results from Vitnemålsportalen.no. If your education results are not available through Vitnemålsportalen, we ask you to upload copies of your transcripts or grades. Please note that all documentation must be in English or a Scandinavian language.
