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Postdoctoral Fellowship available at the PROMENTA Research Center

Deadline: 15.08.2020

Universitetet i Oslo

The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest ranked educational and research institution, with 28 000 students and 7000 employees. With its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally recognised research communities, UiO is an important contributor to society.


The Department of Psychology is one of seven units of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and has 75 permanent and 70 temporary members of scientific staff. Degrees are offered at bachelor and master level, plus a clinical training programme, and the PhD programme has 140 students.

Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, Section for Health-, Developmental- and Personality Psychology

Job description

PROMENTA is a multidisciplinary research center based at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo (UiO). Our aim is to better understand which processes lead to good and poor mental health, by examining influences on mental health on a variety of levels, including genetic risk, neurocognitive development, the psychosocial environment, and the socio-cultural and political context.

The Center is financed by a grant from the Research Council of Norway and contributions from the official partners; the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, UiO; the University Center for Information Technology, UiO; the Norwegian Institute of Public Health; the Norwegian WHO Healthy Cities Network; Oslo Metropolitan University; Leiden University (the Netherlands); and Virginia Commonwealth University (USA). For more information about PROMENTA, please visit www.promenta.no.

The successful applicant will work within The PROMENTA Research Center, in close collaboration with SSF-Centre of Fertility and Health, The Norwegian Institute of Public Health and The Norwegian High-Throughput Sequencing Centre (NSC). The candidate will work in an interdisciplinary field within epidemiology, genetics/epigenetics, and psychology.

More about the position

This position is tied to a new project funded by the Research Council of Norway: “Re-thinking the programming hypothesis: Prenatal maternal anxiety/depression, DNA methylation and child psychopathology. A sibling design”. The project focuses on understanding the biological mechanisms and the role of epigenetic changes in the associations between prenatal exposures and child development. The aim of this position is to utilize data from a large sample of siblings from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and to use innovative methods to better understand the role of early adversity, genotype, and epigenetic mechanisms for child development. The successful applicant should have a strong background in either bioinformatics, bio-statistics, statistics, or genetics and experience with bioinformatics software platforms for genomic analysis. The successful applicant is expected to focus on the statistical analyses and publication part of the research project, and will also have the opportunity to contribute with innovative research ideas. The successful candidate is also expected to collaborate with PROMENTAs extensive international network.

The appointment is a fulltime position for a period of three years, but with the option of a fourth year including 25 % teaching duties depending on qualifications and the needs of the department. Postdoctoral candidates who are appointed for a four-year position, are expected to acquire basic teaching competence during the employment period. The main purpose of the fellowship is to qualify researchers for work in higher academic positions within their disciplines.

Qualification requirements

  • Applicants must hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree in biostatistics, statistics, psychology, epidemiology, human genetics, quantitative genetics or other fields relevant to the project. The doctoral dissertation must be submitted for evaluation by the application closing date and any appointment is dependent on the PhD degree to be approved before starting.
  • Publication record of high quality (how recently the PhD was completed/submitted will be taken into account).
  • Experience in human genetics and advanced statistical methods.
  • Personal suitability, motivation and willingness to collaborate with academics from diverse backgrounds.
  • Good oral and written communication skills in English are required.

The following are considered advantageous:

  • Experience with bioinformatics software platforms for genomic analysis.
  • Experience with research related to problems in developmental psychopathology and psychology.

We encourage candidates to contact the project leader for more information about the position and project prior to submitting an application. Associate Prof. Mona Bekkhus can be reached at mona.bekkhus@psykologi.uio.no or phone: +47-92626351

We offer

  • Salary NOK 552 800 - 640 200 per annum depending on qualifications in position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow (position code 1352)
  • Professional development in a stimulating academic environment and access to a wide international network
  • The possibility to attend scientific conferences, courses and workshops
  • Access to the University of Oslo Post doctoral career development program.
  • Favorable pension and social welfare benefits

How to apply

The application must include:

  • Letter of application, 1-2 pages, explaining the motivation for applying
  • Curriculum Vitae summarizing education, positions and academic work
  • Copies of educational certificates
  • List of Publications
  • Names and contact details of at least two references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system.

International applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University’s grading system. All documents should be in Scandinavian or English.

Formal regulations

Please see the guidelines and regulations for appointments to Postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Oslo.

No one can be appointed for more than one Postdoctoral Fellow 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 University of Oslo has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results etc.

The University of Oslo aims to achieve a balanced gender composition in the workforce and to recruit people with ethnic minority backgrounds.

Contact information

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