Post-doctoral research fellow in Arctic natural hazards and risk management
Deadline: 29.03.2021
UNIS
UNIS is the world's northernmost educational institution, located in Longyearbyen. UNIS has technical and scientific equipment, laboratories and infrastructure for teaching and research in Arctic natural science and technology for sea, land and atmosphere. The disciplines include Arctic Biology, - Geophysics, - Geology and - Technology. All teaching is in English, and about half of the staff and students is from abroad. UNIS is a state-owned corporation. The administrative language is Norwegian.
Longyearbyen is located in Svalbard, in the midst of a varied and beautiful Arctic nature with good opportunities for outdoor activities.
Longyearbyen is a modern town with approx. 2200 inhabitants and has a good service offering including kindergartens, swimming / sports hall and a varied association, sports and cultural life.
General and the ARCT-RISK project
The position is within a joint research project involving personnel from The department of Arctic Geophysics, The department of Arctic Technology, and the Arctic Safety Centre at UNIS.
The ARCT-RISK project
Understanding and adapting to climate change is one of the greatest ongoing societal challenges. The primary objective of the ARCT-RISK project, Risk governance of climate-related systemic risk in the Arctic, is to develop knowledge and tools to make sense of and deal with effects of climate change on society’s ability to protect the life and health of its citizens and to maintain critical infrastructure and function. The starting point of the project is the key role the Arctic plays in understanding and mitigating the challenge of climate adaptation, as the climate already is changing more rapidly in these regions than anywhere else in the world. This means that successful risk governance strategies developed in response to destabilized climate conditions in Arctic locations serve as important guidance for future climate change adaptation in mainland Norway and other relevant parts of the world.
Snow avalanche risk management in Longyearbyen will be used as a case to study and develop approaches to risk governance that will reduce systemic risks (i.e. risks related to a combination of climate change, natural hazards and rippling effects on citizens, infrastructure and societal functions). To achieve the project's objectives a transdisciplinary approach involving perspectives from technology, safety science, natural science and social science is applied. The project partners will collaborate closely with local stakeholders in Longyearbyen to achieve the project objectives. The most important of these are:
1) to improve and integrate fragmented steps in risk governance;
2) to demonstrate how to assess and manage uncertainties associated with climate-related systemic risk governance;
3) to make sense of how real-time data, expert knowledge and local knowledge can be combined to control natural hazards;
4) to assess effective strategies for climate change adaptation;
5) demonstrate transferability of and innovation based on project results. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
Description of the vacant position
The postdoc position will be a member of the ARCT-RISK research team. Together with this team, the successful candidate will apply a transdisciplinary approach combining natural science and safety science. The main aim will be to establish a set of risk indicators that measures the impacts of climate change on societal safety in Longyearbyen. Emphasis will be put on past and projected future changes in climate variables such as temperature and precipitation, their relation to altered weather patterns and associated downstream effects on natural hazards such as avalanches. The successful candidate must have a background from geosciences and aid the ARCT-RISK research team in fulfilling a set of tasks, of which the most central are to: 1) Establish the foundation for developing the risk indicators, based on climate and climate change data, 2) Develop and test the risk indicators, including analysis of uncertainty and dynamics related to climate change’s impact on societal safety, and 3) Develop guidelines for data collection, interpretation and decision support.
Qualifications and personal qualities
Applicants must have completed a PhD or the equivalent within geosciences. PhD students can apply but must have submitted their thesis for assessment prior to the application deadline. It is a condition of final employment that the PhD degree has been awarded.
Applicants must have experience from working with climate data from models and observations, preferably from the Arctic or Antarctic.
Applicants must be able to work independently in a structured manner and demonstrate good collaborative skills, but also be able to work as a team member within an interdisciplinary project group.
Applicants must be proficient in both written and oral English.
Due to due local Norwegian company cooperation partners, applicants must also be proficient in a Scandinavian language to enable efficient collaboration.
Motivation and personal suitability will be emphasized. To allow assessment of this, a statement of personal and scientific interest in doing a postdoc within the announced topic must be included in the application.
Employment conditions
The total duration of the postdoc position is two years.
All salaries are set in accordance with the Norwegian government's University salary scale. Postdocs starts in salary steps 59, which is a gross salary of NOK 525 600,- per year. As a resident in Svalbard an annual allowance of NOK 34 560.- (Svalbardtillegg) will be added to the salary. A Social Security contribution of 2 per cent, to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, will be deducted from the salary. Income tax on Svalbard is 8 per cent, plus 8, 2 per cent toward National Insurance coverage.
The application must be submitted electronically in www.jobbnorge.no.
Applications submitted by any other means will not be considered.
Documents that must be included in the application:
Letter of motivation
CV with complete overview of education and any other training relevant for this position
Name and contact information for two references, where one should be the main supervisor of the PhD thesis project
List of publications
Publications
A copy of the PhD-thesis.
The application and appendices with certified translations into English or a Scandinavian language must be uploaded in Jobbnorge.
You can request to have your application kept from public access cf. the open files act § 25. The request must be explained. UNIS will determine if the application will be kept from public access or not, based on the explanation and the regulations from the open files act. If the application will not be accepted, the candidate will be contacted.
Selection and appointment
A committee will evaluate the qualifications of the applicants and invite the highest ranked person(s) for an interview. The appointment will be made by the Director of UNIS based on the recommendation from the committee.
