About the project/work tasks:

The overall aim of this PhD project is to measure the relative demand for different ecosystem services, including both material and non-material services, across Norwegian society and to identify the social drivers of demand for these services.

The project is part of UiBs Centre for Sustainable Management initiative (CESAM). A major goal of CESAM is to develop NCPNorge, a widely applicable model that will predict the social impacts of ecosystem change across the whole of Norway. Such an initiative is a major undertaking, and the project needs to be completed in several steps. The first of these, and a major pre-requisite, is the main aim of this project: to quantify which of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) are most demanded by different stakeholders in Norway, in a social-ecological research project. This project will also address the lack of information regarding what drives the demand for ecosystem services, a neglected element of their management.

To address these goals the proposed PhD project would conduct in-person workshops with a wide range of senior local stakeholders in each major social-ecological region of Norway. This would be followed by a larger social survey of a much larger sample of stakeholders from throughout the country. Additional data will be collected to understand the social and cultural drivers of these demand patterns. Further, existing data measuring preferences for land use and preservation can be analysed, including national public opinion survey data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel and the Panels of Elected Representatives and Public Administrators. The balance of large-scale survey and interview work will depend on the profile of the successful candidate.

The proposed project will involve interdisciplinary collaboration across the CESAM initiative and build the foundations of large-scale research platform, while also providing insightful and societally relevant research in its own right. The research fellow will be primarily supervised by Professor Peter Manning (BIO), with additional support from Associate Professor Endre Tvinnereim (Dept. of Government), Professor Vigdis Vandvik (BIO) and Professor Inger Måren (BIO).

Qualifications and personal qualities:

• Applicants must hold a master's degree or equivalent education in any relevant area, which may include ecology, environmental science, geography, sociology, or political science, or must have submitted his/her master's thesis for assessment prior to the application deadline. It is a condition of employment that the master's degree has been awarded.
• Knowledge of ecosystem services concepts and theories and/or ecosystem services management is an advantage, preferably within a Norwegian context.
• Knowledge of, and practical experience with methods for collecting interview data or survey data is a requirement.
• Experience in conducting social surveys online and in-person is considered an advantage.
• Experience in conducting advanced statistical analysis, preferably in R, is considered an advantage.
• Applicants must be able to work independently and in a structured manner and demonstrate good collaborative skills.
• Applicants must be proficient in both written and oral English and preferably with strong skills in academic writing and presentations.
• Applicants must have a good command of the Norwegian language, so that workshops and interviews can be conducted in Norwegian within 6 months of starting the project. E.g. be a Scandinavian language speaker.
• Experience of work in an interdisciplinary research environment is an advantage.

Personal and relational qualities will be emphasized. Ambitions and potential will also count when evaluating the candidates.

For full details see: https://www.jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/253354/phd-research-fellow-in-ecosystem-services 

Application deadline: 10 Dec 2023