LEDIG STILLING VED UIT NORGES ARKTISKE UNIVERSITET
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Law - Children's Right to Health
Deadline: 09.01.2022
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
UiT is a multi-campus research university in Norway and the northernmost university of the world. Our central location in the High North, our broad and diverse research and study portfolio, and our interdisciplinary qualities make us uniquely suited to meet the challenges of the future. At UiT you can explore global issues from a close-up perspective.
Credibility, academic freedom, closeness, creativity and commitment shall be hallmarks of the relationship between our employees, between our employees and our students and between UiT and our partners.
Faculty of Law
The position
At the Faculty of Law a position is available for a Postdoctoral research fellow. The postdoctoral position is a part of the research project Children's Right to Health, funded by the Norwegian Research Council (NRC).
The position is a fixed term position for a duration of three years. If you receive a personal overseas research grant from NRC it is possible to apply NRC for an extension of the fellowship period corresponding to the length of the stay abroad (minimum three months, maximum 12 months).
Appointment to the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow is mainly intended to provide qualification for work in top academic positions. It is a prerequisite that the applicant is able to carry out the project over the full course of the employment period. The position will be assigned to teaching and related work for UiT in an amount equivalent to 20 % of full-time employment. No person may hold more than one fixed-term position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.
The Faculty of Law has about 950 law students, 25 PhD students, 35 members of the academic staff and 16 members of the administrative staff. The Faculty may award the degrees of Master and PhD in Law as well as the degrees of Master of Laws (LL.M.) in the Law of the Sea and Joint Nordic Master`s Program in Environmental Law.
The appointed Postdoctoral Fellow must have its daily workplace at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø.You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time after receiving the offer.
The position's field of research
The postdoctoral position is a part of the research project Children’s right to health, funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
The main objective of the project is to develop our understanding of children’s rights. The central research question is how to secure children’s rights in health matters and by this also strengthen their rights in general. A subsequent question is which impact core values and principles in health law, designed and developed for all humans, have for children. Another issue is to analyze the role of law and how various legal instruments can safeguard children’s right to health. Based on the child’s right to healthcare, the project will within a Nordic frame analyze how the basic principles in health law turn out for children, and how those principles correspond with the CRC and basic principles within child law.
Healthcare involves questions of a very personal character. Patient autonomy/ participation is regarded as a basic value and right, and includes a legal and ethical side, which may contradict with the right to health. From a child law perspective even more and more complicated question emerge, due to an understanding of children as an incompetent actor in personal affairs. An important research question is whether the legal system itself unintentionally may cause vulnerability to children, in general, or to specific groups of children, or individuals in various situations. Two examples are children with unclarified residential status and children in child welfare services.
The Postdoctoral fellow is expected to especially contribute to the research theme: Competence and participation. The two other overall research themes are Children’s status and visibility in human rights instruments on health matters and Vulnerability and resilience. A hypothesis is that children are probably more competent in health matters than acknowledged by national and international legal instruments. Age and maturity have proved to be incomplete criteria for assessing children’s personal competence. The project seeks to identify other assessment criteria that can provide a more nuanced approach to the understanding of children as right holders. A central part of the project is to elaborate the legal basis for decisions in health services for children and investigate which factors that should be decisive for children’s rights to participate or decide in health matters. Another question is under what conditions their rights may be restricted, in order to balance autonomy and protection. There is a need to clarify which instruments must be available to safeguard children's rights if their rights are violated, either by the parents or the state.
By working on children’s rights in health matters, balancing autonomy/participation and protection, and balancing the rights and duties of the parents and children’s rights, and the responsibility of the state, we will build a theoretical framework. Our hypothesis is that by developing better theoretical tools it will be possible to reach a deeper understanding of children’s rights, in general and in health law particular.
The candidate selected for employment must be willing to adjust the project proposals to the research plans under the Children’s right to health project.
Contact
For further information about the position, please contact:
For appointment as Postdoctoral research fellow, a Norwegian doctoral degree within legal science or a corresponding foreign doctoral degree recognized as equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree is required.
Qualification with a PhD is required before commencement in the position. If you’re at the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply if you have submitted your PhD thesis for doctoral degree evaluation within the application deadline. You must submit the thesis with your application. You must have dissertated before the start-up date of the position.
In the assessment the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works and the project proposal for the qualifying work. It will be an advantage if the applicant has experience from experience from research on children's rights, human rights law and/or health law, in addition to knowledge about the Nordic welfare model. Emphasis will also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity. As teaching duties or equivalent work is attached to the position, emphasis will also be attached to teaching experience and qualifications.
In addition, he/she must be able to document proficiency in English equivalent to Norwegian Higher Education Entrance Qualification. The applicant must understand Norwegian or commit himself/herself to participate in the Norwegian Language Courses held by UiT at the outset of the employment.
During the assessment emphasis will be put on the candidate’s motivation, potential for research, and personal suitability for the position.
At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work and not on where the work is published, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).
Inclusion and diversity
UiT The Arctic University i Norway is working actively to promote equality, gender balance and diversity among employees and students, and to create an inclusive and safe working environment. We believe that inclusion and diversity is a strength, and we want employees with different competencies, professional experience, life experience and perspectives.
If you have a disability, a gap in your CV or immigrant background, we encourage you to tick the box for this in your application. If there are qualified applicants, we invite least one in each group for an interview. If you get the job, we will adapt the working conditions if you need it. Apart from selecting the right candidates, we will only use the information for anonymous statistics.
We offer
Involvement in an interesting research project
Good career opportunities
A good academic environment with dedicated colleagues
Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement
Documentation of teaching experience and qualifications, if applicable
A list of your academic production
Description of your academic production, stating which works you consider most important
Academic works, up to ten. The doctoral thesis is regarded as one work
All documentation to be considered must be in a Scandinavian language or English. We only accept applications and documentation sent via Jobbnorge within the application deadline.
Assessment
The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications based on the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position.
The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview should among other things, aim to clarify the applicant’s motivation and personal suitability for the position.
General information
The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants.
The remuneration for Postdoctoral research fellow is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1352. A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted.
The successful candidate must be willing to get involved in the ongoing development of their department and the university as a whole.
According to the Norwegian Freedom and 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.
