Faculty of Social Sciences,

Department of Psychology,

Section for Health, Developmental and Personality Psychology

PhD candidate - Effects of the interdisciplinary subject “Health and life skills”, a naturalistic experiment using registry data

Job description

A 3-4 year PhD fellowship in psychology is available at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo.

The PhD fellow will be working in a team to evaluate consequences of the interdisciplinary topic "Health and Life Skills" in Norwegian schools. The project will use information from national registries, school and student surveys, and the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) to investigate changes in pupils’ mental health, quality of life, socioemotional school environment, school performance, and attendance from before till after the interdisciplinary topic “Health and life skills” was implemented in Norwegian schools.

The position will offer opportunities to develop high-quality research competence, and to work with leading experts in the field. The candidate is expected to develop strong skills in advanced statistical methods and finalize a PhD dissertation within the project period. Professor Egil Nygaard leads the project in collaboration with researchers at the PROMENTA Research Center, Faculty of Educational Sciences (UiO) and Institute of Education and Lifelong Learning (NTNU).

More about the position

The PhD position is linked to the project “Effects of the interdisciplinary subject Health and life skills, a naturalistic experiment using registry data” funded by a grant from the Norwegian Research Council.

The fellowship is for a period of three years. A fourth year can be considered with the addition of 25 % teaching requirement, depending on the competence of the applicant and the needs of the department. The fellowship is planned to start January 1st 2022.

The PhD fellow must take part in the Department’s approved PhD program and is expected to complete the degree within the set fellowship period. The main purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.

For more information about the position and for a detailed project description, please contact Prof. Egil Nygaard (email: egilny@psykologi.uio.no, phone: +47-41291922).

Qualification requirements

• Applicants must hold a Master’s degree (120 ECTS) or equivalent in relevant fields such as education, psychology (Professional program or Master’s program in psychology), sociology, other social science disciplines or related fields. The Master’s degree must include a thesis of at least 30 ECTS
• Strong skills in quantitative analysis.
• Long-term potential for high-quality research.
• Excellent English skills, both spoken, reading and in writing, are required.

Preferable qualifications

• Experience with subjects related to research on promotion and prevention of mental health, quality of life, socioemotional school environment, school performance and attendance.
• Experience with methods used in the present project, e.g., longitudinal data analysis, multilevel analysis, structural equation modelling, or use of registry and large cohort data.
• Experience with software such as R, Stata, Mplus or SPSS.
• Teaching experience.
• Excellent Norwegian and English skills, both spoken, reading and in writing.
• Personal suitability, motivation and willingness to collaborate with academics from diverse backgrounds.
• Ability to work independently.
• Creative thinking and analytic abilities.
• Efficient work structure.
• Enthusiasm for the topic.
• Ambition for high-quality research within the project, as evidenced by the required letter of application, explaining the motivation for applying and how own qualifications are suitable for the announced position.

In assessing applications, particular emphasis will be placed upon the quality of the candidate’s academic qualifications. Interviews with selected candidates will be arranged where the applicants’ personal suitability, motivation and cooperation skills will be emphasized.

We offer

• Salary grade NOK 491 200 - 534 400 per year depending on qualifications in a position as PhD Research fellow (position code 1017)
• A professionally stimulating work environment and collaboration with a newly established research center (PROMENTA) at the Department of Psychology
• Opportunities for extensive collaboration
• Favorable pension and social welfare benefits

How to apply

The application must include

• Letter of application, max. 3 pages, explaining the motivation for applying and how own qualifications match the announced PhD position
• CV summarizing education, employment history, teaching history, and a list of publications (if applicable)
• Copies of educational certificates
• Copies of publications/academic work (if any) that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• Names and contact details of at least two references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail, and telephone number)

The application with attachments must be submitted through our electronic recruiting system, please follow the link “Apply for this job”. Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language.

Contact information

• Prof. Egil Nygaard, phone: +47-41291922, email: egilny@psykologi.uio.no
• HR-officer Linn Berg Salvesen, email: l.b.salvesen@psykologi.uio.no

Formal regulations

Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Research Fellowships at the University of Oslo.

No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

This is a project funded by the Research Council of Norway and applicants with a previous PhD degree cannot be appointed for this position.

According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

The appointment may be shortened/given a more limited scope within the framework of the applicable guidelines on account of any previous employment in academic positions.

The University of Oslo has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results etc.

Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition. We also want to have employees with diverse expertise, combinations of subjects, life experience and perspectives. We will make adjustments for employees who require this.

If there are qualified applicants with special needs, gaps in their CVs or immigrant backgrounds, we will invite at least one applicant in each of these groups to an interview.

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