Postdoctoral position on health care plastics, waste and activism in the Arctic
Deadline: 15.02.2026
Publisert
The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest ranked educational and research institution, with 26 500 students and 7 200 employees. With its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally recognised research communities, UiO is an important contributor to society.
The Institute of Health and Society is one of three institutes at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Oslo. The Institute covers various disciplines and consists of six departments: General Practice, Health Sciences, Health Management and Health Economics, Medical Ethics, Community Medicine and Global Health and Public Health Science.
The Institute of Health and Society bases its work on a complex understanding of disease, health and health systems. Culture, environment, economics, society and biology play direct and indirect roles. Our teaching responsibilities include seven Master’s programs, one Bachelor program and part of the Faculty’s medical school and PhD-program. We employ about 220 FTE and have almost 700 Bachelor and Master students. Annual income is about 200 mill NOK, half of which is external funding. Our researchers play an active part of public policy and disseminate new knowledge through many channels.
About the position
The Institute for Health and Society is recruiting 1 Postdoctoral Fellow (SKO 1352) with a PhD in either social science, or the humanities, to a project on plastics in healthcare. In this postdoc position you will join an interdisciplinary and multinational team of researchers in the Wellcome Trust-funded Discovery Grant project "After the Single Use: Rethinking Medical Devices for Reuse, Resilience and Renewal", a five-year anthropological and historical research project examining the history, circulation and discard of single-use plastics in global healthcare, with the aim to understand how, and why we came to naturalise and normalize disposability in healthcare, and explore ways to collaborate to reduce it. The project involves research teams in 8 different countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the US. This postdoc position will be part of the Norwegian team, and focus on healthcare plastics and waste in Sámi indigenous territories.
The appointment is a fulltime position for a period of three years. Depending on your competence and the teaching needs of the department, the fellowship can be extended up to four years.
The Postdoctoral fellow will conduct historical and ethnographic research on community-based experiences, knowledge and advocacy related to how healthcare plastics and healthcare waste is framed and understood as a problem and/or solution in the vulnerable landscapes of the arctic. We invite the applicants to submit a detailed project proposal within these frames, which will be further developed in collaboration with the Norwegian project lead. The research will be carried out in close collaboration with the international research team partners, including the NGO Health Care without Harm and the Norwegian Bioart Arena. The Postdoc will also contribute to other project-related tasks and activities.
We are seeking a candidate with a PhD in the social sciences or humanities with experience in engaged research connected to health or medicine, and preferably with demonstrated knowledge of, or experience working within, Sámi culture and contexts and/or civil society organisations.
More about the position
The postdoctoral position will be employed by the Institute of Health and Society (Helsam) at the University of Oslo. Academic staff are formally employed by the Institute, but have their primary workplace and disciplinary home within one of its departments. The Postdoctoral fellow will be based at the Section for Medical Humanities, one of three sections in the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health. The department is a dynamic, internationally oriented environment that brings together researchers from medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities. Its research spans global health, medical anthropology, epidemiology, and medical history, fostering a collegial and creative academic culture.
In the Section for Medical Humanities anthropologists and historians work together to investigate the cultural, historical, and social dimensions of health and medicine — from everyday experiences of illness to the ways medical knowledge, technologies, and policies shape societies.
A career plan shall be developed for the Postdoctoral Fellow, specifying the competencies the Postdoctoral Fellow should acquire. UiO is responsible for following up on the career plan and ensuring that the Postdoctoral Fellow has access to career guidance throughout the postdoctoral term.
The duration of appointment is 3 years. Other career-promoting work will consist of 10 % which is devoted to required duties
Areas of responsibilities
• Develop a case study on primary healthcare in the Arctic including: research design, development of methods, writing of protocol and application for ethics. Ongoing refinement of research design and implementation
• Conduct primary and secondary research - historical and ethnographic- on community-based experiences, knowledge and advocacy related to healthcare plastics and healthcare waste, including: stakeholder mapping, grey literature reviews, archive research, ethnographic research, photovoice and interviews. This includes fieldwork in the Arctic.
• Independently prepare and write academic publications related to the case study (e.g one monograph and two articles) and contribute to co-authorship of wider project publications and other outputs (e.g. blog posts, executive summaries, policy briefings, podcasts, etc.)
• Present research publications at academic and policy conferences and meetings.
• Work closely with the Norwegian Co-PI and the Norwegian Bioart Arena NOBA to develop and implement the art engagement of the overall project
• Work closely with the Norwegian Co-PI on the Norwegian part of the project’s communications and stakeholder engagement plan, knowledge exchange and impact activities, and events related to governance of plastics in health care in Norway
• Contribute to the overall project activities (organising events, producing website content, data management and storage, etc.), including international travel for project meetings and events
Essential qualifications
In this role you must:
Hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree (PhD) in social science or the humanities, or a closely related discipline. A Phd in the health, or medical sciences with demonstrated qualification in the social sciences and/or the humanities can be accepted
For applicants who have yet to receive their PhD degree, the doctoral dissertation must have been submitted for evaluation
Good written and oral proficiency in English
Good organizational and administrative skills, including time management
Demonstrated excellent academic writing skillsHave prior experience either with ethnographic fieldwork and/or archival work
Other qualifications:
In addition, it would be an advantage (but not a requirement) if you:
Have documented Sámi cultural competence
Have a fit and complementarity with the project’s theoretical and methodological approach
Have nowledge of the social science and/ or history of plastics, infrastructure and health systems
Have knowledge of sustainability in the health sector in Norway
Have experience with working interdisciplinary and across cultures and regions
Have good written and oral proficiency in one of the Nordic languages and/or proficiency in one of the Sami languages
We are looking for a person who
Has an interest in developing skills in creative and collaborative research methodologies together with other researchers from different parts of the world
Is engaged and wants to make a difference with their research
Is willing to contribute to a positive research community both among fellow Early Career Researchers at UiO and in the project team as a whole and has ideas about what such contributions could be
Wants to be part of the intellectual and research life at the Institute for Health and Society
Employment in the position is based on a comprehensive assessment of all qualification requirements applicable to the position, including personal qualifications.
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. At least one qualified candidate from each group will be invited 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.
We can offer
Exciting and meaningful work tasks in an organization with an important societal mission, contributing to knowledge development, education, and enlightenment that promote sustainable, fair, and knowledge-based societal development.
Being part of a large and active interdisciplinary and multinational research team engaged in competence building for early career scholars.
Opportunity to develop your interdisciplinary skills through working with scholars with competences ranging from medicine and public health to anthropology and history and art.
Membership in the Statens Pensjonskasse, which is one of Norway's best pension schemes with beneficial mortgages and good insurance schemes.
Norway’s capital with its easy access to beautiful nature and rich cultural life.
Salary in position as Postdoctoral Fellow, position code 1352 in salary range NOK 595 000-674 000 depending on competence and experience. From the salary, 2 percent is deducted in statutory contributions to the State Pension Fund.
Read more about the benefits of working in the public sector at Employer Portal.
Application
Your application should include:
A motivational letter (maks 1 page).
CV.
A complete list of publications.
Project description (maks 3 pages)
A copy of what you consider to be your best academic work to date (only one). If this is a co-authored paper/publication, you must additionally submit a declaration of co-authorship specifying your individual contribution and signed by your co-author(s).
Transcripts and certificates.
Names and contact details for 2-3 reference persons (name, relationship to candidate, e-mail, and phone number). Reference letters are not needed.
Your PhD dissertation.
Copies of educational diplomas and academic transcripts (PhD, MA).
Application with attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system Jobbnorge, click "Apply for the position".
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.
General information
The best qualified candidates will invited for interviews.
Applicant lists can be published in accordance with Norwegian Freedom of Information Act § 25. When you apply for a position with us, your name will appear on the public applicant list. It is possible to request to be excluded from this list. You must justify why you want an exemption from publication and we will then decide whether we can grant your request. If we cannot, you will hear from us.
