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Post-Doctoral Fellowships: Digital Twins in the Energy Industry

Deadline: 01.08.2020

Universitetet i Oslo

The University of Oslo is Norway’s oldest and highest rated institution of research and education with 28 000 students and 7000 employees. Its broad range of academic disciplines and internationally esteemed research communities make UiO an important contributor to society.


SIRIUS is a Centre for Research-based Innovation in Scalable Data Access in the Oil & Gas Domain. It is located at and led by the University of Oslo. The centre started operations in 2016 and has been funded by the Research Council of Norway for 8 years.


Partner companies include Equinor, TechnipFMC, Schlumberger, IBM, DNV-GL, Evry, Computas, Kadme, Numascale, Dolphin Interconnect, OSISoft, SAP and TechnipFMC. Academic partners are the University of Oxford, Simula Research Laboratory and NTNU.

The aim of the centre is to provide a vehicle for delivering industrially-relevant, innovative research through collaboration between the centre’s partners and through associated projects. SIRIUS has a central role in the innovation ecosystem around the University of Oslo and the engineering, IT and oil companies in South-East Norway.

Job description

Applications are invited for up to two positions in Informatics, to be based at the SIRIUS Centre for Research-Based Innovation, University of Oslo:

The positions are for a period of three years.

No one can be appointed for more than one Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Oslo. Starting date as soon as possible.

These positions are financed by the Research Council of Norway, Shell and Equinor in a project called PeTWIN: Whole-field Digital Twins for Production Optimization and Management. This is a joint Norway-Brazil project, where we will be collaborating with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). The project has defined a common research program that will be done in collaboration with a consortium that consists of the University of Oslo, UFRGS, Equinor, Shell and Petrobras.

More about the position

In 2018, Digital Twins, together with Deep Learning, were at the very top of Gartner Group's well-known hype curve. Put simply, a digital twin is a simulator that tracks the operation of an industrial facility. In a large endeavor like the exploitation of an oil field, many different digital twins will track different aspects. What the industry needs is a way to make these twins interact and allow seeing the individual twins as one unified system.

This project brings together academics and production companies in Norway and Brazil to build a research-based best practice for building and using digital twins for field management. This will be done by letting researchers work with current digital twin projects in companies. We believe that a shared conceptual model of the production facility is needed to tie together all the information, measurements and models that are needed to build a digital twin. Making and using this model is the main research task of this project.

Technically, the work will be based on Semantic Technologies and Formal Ontology. The actual research topics will be informed by the use cases that will be provided by the industry partners.

We expect to address research challenges including, but not limited to the following:

  • Integration of sub-surface (e.g. geological) information with sensor data and asset models
  • Reconciling fast-changing data streams and slowly changing asset models
  • Ontology-based querying and transformation of time series and streaming data
  • Semantic data integration

Mobility and Collaboration with Brazil

This project is a collaborative project with a Brazilian university and company. It is expected that the research fellows will engage in short-term and long-term (3-6 months) mobility with our Brazilian partners during the project.

The main purpose of a postdoctoral fellowship is to provide the candidates with enhanced skills to pursue a scientific top position within or beyond academia. To promote a strategic career path, all postdoctoral research fellows are required to submit a professional development plan no later than one month after commencement of the postdoctoral period.

The main purpose of the fellowship is to qualify researchers for work in higher academic positions within their disciplines.

Qualification requirements

The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition of being a leading research faculty. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.

  • Applicants must hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree in Informatics. The doctoral dissertation must be submitted for evaluation by the closing date. Appointment is dependent on the public defence of the doctoral thesis being approved.
  • Fluent oral and written communication skills in English.
  • Applicants must have done research in ontologies, semantic technologies, logic, formal methods, or related topics.
  • Experience in application of these techniques to topics in industry is an advantage.

Personal skills

During the evaluation of applications, we will value:

  • Experience in and interest in industrial applications of computer science.
  • Experience of and interest in one or more of the research programs in SIRIUS: ontology engineering, semantic integration or domain-adapted data science.

Good interpersonal skills and the ability to work in a complex, international project team.

We offer

  • salary NOK 523 200 – 605 500 per annum depending on qualifications in position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow (position code 1352)
  • Attractive welfare benefits and a generous pension agreement
  • Professionally stimulating working environment
  • Vibrant international academic environment
  • Postdoctoral development programmes
  • Oslo’s family-friendly surroundings with their rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

The application must include

  • Cover letter statement of motivation and research interests
  • CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work)
  • Copies of educational certificates (academic transcripts only)
  • A complete list of publications and academic works
  • list of reference persons: 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and phone number)

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

When evaluating the application, emphasis will be given to the applicant’s academic and personal prerequisites to carry out the project. Interviews with the best qualified candidates will be arranged.It is expected that the successful candidate will be able to complete the project in the course of the period of employment.

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

  • Project Manager: Dr. David Cameron, tlf: 22 85 04 46, e-post: davidbc@ifi.uio.no
  • Project Scientific Leader: Prof. Martin Giese, tlf: 22 85 27 37, e-post:martingi@ifi.uio.no
  • SIRIUS Centre Director: Prof. Arild Waaler, tlf: 22 84 00 55, e-post: arild@ifi.uio.no

For questions regarding the recruitment system, please contact HR Adviser Torunn Standal Guttormsen, phone: +47 22854272, email:t.s.guttormsen@mn.uio.no

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