Job description

There is a vacant position at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography for a PhD research fellow (SKO 1017) in sociology. The position is for a period of three years without compulsory work or four year with compulsory work (primarily teaching duties).

More about the position

The position is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and is part of the research project The Politics of Disability Identity, which investigates the societal and cultural conditions under which people with disabilities are recognized and included. Among the research questions are whether or not inclusion has increased in recent decades, which sub-groups are considered more or less “includable", and how these recognition processes take place in a social, cultural and historical sense.

The PhD fellow will be part of the work package Pathways through education. The objective of this WP is to assess the Norwegian welfare state’s capacity to include disabled people, to determine whether this capacity has increased or decreased over time, and to explore how various enabling and constraining factors interact with different types of disabilities and framings of disability identity.

The PhD project should assess the degree of inclusion for outcomes such as income, labour market participation, educational attainments and uptake of disability benefits at different times, related to different types and severities of disability. It should account for enabling and constraining factors, such as class background, educational achievement, and whether the significance of parental educational background have changed over time.

The Politics of Disability Identity involves two UiO departments and two research institutes. The successful candidate will join the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, where the project is led by Jan Grue, and will also work closely with Jon Erik Finnvold at Oslo Metropolitan University / NOVA.

Qualification requirements

A prerequisite for taking up the position is the successful completion of a Master’s degree. Candidates from disciplinary backgrounds other than sociology must demonstrate in their application letter that their educational background prepares them for doctoral study in sociology. Their Master’s degree must include a master thesis. Applicants must have a minimum grade B (ECTS grading scale) or equivalent. The master's thesis must have been submitted before the application deadline.

Applicants should preferably have research interests pertaining to disability studies and/or the sociology of disability and chronic illness. Competitive candidates have skills in quantitative data analysis. Knowledge of Scandinavian administrative register data is an advantage. The candidate will be working extensively with individual-level data, including cohorts spanning several decades and combining information from a range of official registers, with tasks including merging of datasets, recoding and multivariate analyses.. The candidate is expected to follow PhD-courses relevant to the specific requirements of time series data.

Applicants must have excellent written and oral proficiency in English.

The position requires that the person who is hired participates in the Faculty of Social Sciences' organised research education programme (PhD programme) and that the work results in a doctorate in sociology. The person who is hired will automatically be admitted to the PhD programme.

Residence in Norway is expected, but PhD fellows are also encouraged to spend time abroad during the fellowship period.

The hiring process will include an interview. In addition to an overall evaluation of the applicant’s grades, particular emphasis will be placed on the quality of the master's thesis and the candidate’s own project outline.

The final hiring decision is the responsibility of the department’s board and will be based on an evaluation of the overall qualifications of the shortlisted candidates as well as the project’s and department’s needs.

We offer

• Salary at pay rate 54-59, NOK 491 200-534 400 per annum depending on qualifications
• An academically stimulating working environment
• Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement, in addition to Oslo’s family-friendly environment with its rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

The application must include

• A letter of application. Please describe your motivation for applying for this position and explain how your background, research and experience is relevant to the research project
• A project outline of 3-5 pages, including references. This outline should describe the research the applicant wishes to pursue within the framework of the project, and make clear how this research fits within the overall framework of The Politics of Disability Identity
• CV with full summary of education, practice and academic work
• The period of enrolment (admission-completion) in the master's study programme must be specified
• Academic transcripts (university degrees only)
• Copy of Master's degree diploma
• Master's thesis
• List of reference persons: 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and phone number)

The application with attachments must be submitted in 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).

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.

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.

Contact information

• Associate Professor Jan Grue, email: jan.grue@isp.uio.no
• Head of Administration, Inger Lise Schwab, email: i.l.schwab@sosgeo.uio.no

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