The position is resident at NTNUs campus in Trondheim. It is an educational position, which will provide promising research talents the opportunity for professional development towards a PhD-degree. The position is connected to the PhD program at the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences.
You will report to the Head of Department.
The position is created to strengthen the focus area “sustainable consumption” within the Environmental Psychology group at NTNU “Citizen, Environment, and Safety” (CES). The group is one of the leading groups on environmental psychological research in Europe leading and co-leading numerous international and interdisciplinary projects across a large variety of thematic areas.
The EU project RAINFOREST, which this PhD position is connected to, focuses on human consumption, production, and trade of food and biomass as the main underlying causes of biodiversity loss. In addition to several European countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Norway, there will be case studies located in Brazil and Peru, hence the project has a global scope.
The role of this PhD in the project is to focus on the human dimension within the consumption life cycle, hence decision making and behaviour change. Together with the interdisciplinary consortium in the project, the candidate is expected to collaborate with retailers in Norway to develop case study experiments in which the effect of a selection of interventions shall be evaluated. The aim of the interventions is to reduce the impact of consumer decision making on biodiversity and could for example focus on meat consumption (but also other product categories such as dairy, coffee, alcohol or local and seasonal produce).
The PhD candidate will apply knowledge from social and environmental psychology to develop an appropriate (mixed methods) study design in collaboration with respective retailers to answer the core research questions:
- Which interventions to minimize biodiversity impact of consumer decisions are acceptable and feasible from a consumer, retailer and stakeholder perspective?
- Which intervention has the strongest effect on biodiversity impact of consumer decisions and why?
- What are potential barriers and limitations for scaling up these interventions in Norway and internationally?
For the case studies, a combination of methods can be applied such as interviews, focus groups, surveys or observations. Activities the successful candidate will be involved in include interactions with project partners and stakeholders, data collections, subsequent data analysis and the development of scientific publications. In addition to the case studies, the candidate is expected to feed into other work packages in the project to represent the behavioral science perspective. The candidate is encouraged to shape the project description according to their own strengths and further to co-develop the process together with project partners and stakeholders working in this project.
The position will strengthen NTNU’s international collaboration profile and to demonstrate the wide applicability of psychology and behavioral science.
Required selection criteria
- You must have a professionally relevant background in social and/or environmental psychology
- Your education must correspond to a five-year Norwegian degree program, where 120 credits are obtained at master’s level
- You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and an average grade from the master’s degree program, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared with NTNU’s grading scale. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic basis. If you have a weaker grade background, you may be assessed if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education.
- Master’s students can apply, but the master’s degree must be obtained and documented by 01.11.2022.
- You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty’s doctoral program
The appointment is to be made in accordance with Regulations on terms of employment for positions such as postdoctoral fellow, Phd candidate, research assistant and specialist candidate and Regulations concerning the degrees of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) and Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) in artistic research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).
Salary and conditions
As a PhD candidate (code 1017) you are normally paid from gross NOK 501 200 per annum before tax, depending on qualifications and seniority. From the salary, 2% is deducted as a contribution to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund.
The period of employment is 3 years.
You can find additional information and apply here.
