University of South-Eastern Norway

University of South-Eastern Norway has about 18 000 students and about 1500 employees. The university is organized in four faculties, with instruction and R&D activities on eight campuses. The main profile of the university is to provide socially relevant education, geared towards specific professions, and adapted to the requirements of the workplace, as well as to produce applied research and development.

The Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Science has a vacancy for a position as PhD Research Fellow in landscape and sustainability from 01.01.19.

The place of employment is either Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education or Department of Culture, Religion and Social Studies.

The place of employment will be campus Vestfold or campus Notodden.

Qualifications

Applicants to the PhD position must have a Master’s degree or equivalent higher education qualifications in cross- or interdisciplinary studies of arts, culture and/or society, early childhood education or educational sciences, or similiar disciplines. A Master´s degree in combination with relevant artistic practice or work experience is also relevant.The applicant must have gained the degree within the application deadline.

It is a requirement that the successful applicant is granted admission to the university’s doctoral programme in culture studies.

The staff at the faculty work within teams to a large extent, and the candidate must be motivated to share his or her knowledge and cooperate. The applicant must also be willing to collaborate across disiplines and contribute to interdisciplinary knowledge development. We are looking for a candidate that is curious, open-minded and creative.

The candidate’s personal suitability, engagement and motivation to invest efforts in the project will be emphasized in the selection process. The quality and feasibility of the project description, as well as credibility and sincerity of the applicants voice, will be important in the selection process.

Information about the position

United Nation´s sustainable development goals stress education as one of the most important premises to develop more sustainable societies globally. It is an explicit intention of the project to build bridges between different disciplines and knowledge areas to promote integration and neutralize fragmentation of learning processes and understanding of knowledge as discipline-based.

The purpose of the project is to develop new research-based knowledge and understanding of:

1) landscape as a cross-disciplinary knowledge theme and

2) learning processes in relation to landscape in early childhood education which promote sustainable development. Landscape is a core theme both in design, arts and crafts AND social studies in early childhood education, and can be defined as an area whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.

Core issues concern development of new values and attitudes for sustainability and for new pedagogical practices at the individual educational institution. Relevant research questions can be to investigate teachers ´experiences with uses of landscape, in combination with investigation of potential and new possibilities and implement these to facilitate change.

Different forms of aesthetic, arts-based approaches are relevant in all phases of the research project and in both social studies and design, arts and craft. In design, arts and craft landscape can be investigated through creative processes through drawing, photography, land art, or other creative work with locally available materials. In a similar way, different methodical approaches from the social sciences such as cultural analysis are relevant in both social studies and design, arts and crafts, with the investigation of landscapes as both a historical and contemporary phenomena where human beings invest meaning in landscapes through aesthetic and embodied activities.

The project can deal with diversity of methods. Case studies, comparative studies and intercultural studies are made possible through already existing collaboration between USN and educational institutions in other countries.

The project should seek to engage young children, early childhood settings and local communities with purpose to support long-term sustainable solutions, contributing to better quality of life for people, communities, landscapes, resources and living organisms that cohabit our planet. The PhD-project could include university students.

The doctoral project will be placed in the research group LETS (Learning and Teaching Sustainability) with supervisors from both design, arts and crafts and social science/cultural analysis.

The appointment will be for a term of four years with 25% teaching duties or for a period of three years without teaching duties.

For further information concerning the position please contact:

• Geir Salvesen, head of department, tel. 31009172 / 95230715 at Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education,
• Biljana C. Fredriksen, associate professor, tel. +47 92615984, at Department of Visual and Performing Arts Education, or
• Inger Birkeand, professor, +4792656236, at Department of Culture, Religion and Social Studies

We offer

• A professionally stimulating working environment.

• Good opportunities to develop your career and your academic skills

• A good social environment

• Attractive welfare benefits in the State Pension Plan

• Opportunity for physical activities within working hours

Salary

PhD Research Fellow (code 1017): NOK 449 400 a year. Further promotion will be based on service in the position. In special cases, employment in code 1378 may be considered. Salary NOK 449 400 – 600 200 a year. A statutory contribution will be made from the employee’s salary to the state pension plan.

Additional information

Appointment to the position will be carried out by The Appointments Board for PhD Research Fellows. An expert assessment of applicants will be carried out. Short-listed candidates will be called in for interviews and must be prepared to present and discuss their projects.

The successful applicant must comply with the laws, regulations and agreements that apply to the position.

It is an aim of personnel policy that the academic staff of University of Southeastern Norway should reflect the composition of the general population. It is therefore a personnel policy objective to achieve a balanced age and gender composition on the faculty and to recruit people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

People from ethnic minority backgrounds are encouraged to apply for the position.According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information act § 25 2 paragraph, information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, even though the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

The applicant will be informed if his/her request has been declined.

How to applyUniversity of Southeastern Norway uses online applications.

We therefore ask applicants to register their application and CV online by clicking on the “Send application” link to the right. The application must include the following documents:

1. Certified diplomas and certificates from university college/university

2. Master’s thesis

3. A 5-10 page (maximum) project description

4. Any scientific publications and a list of these

5. Three references (contact information)

Please note that all documents must be translated into English or a Scandinavian language by an authorized translator.

Send application