Postdoctoral Fellow in Enviromental Humanities

About this position

The University of Stavanger invites applicants for a position as Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Humanities at the Faculty of Education and Humanities, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages. The position is vacant from 1 January 2027.

The postdoctoral researcher will be employed for a period of 36 months. This includes 30 months of project work and 6 months of administrative duties and/or teaching at the Department of Cultural Studies and Languages and the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities.

The purpose of the position is to enable the successful candidate to develop a research profile and acquire the qualifications required to apply for a position as Associate Professor. The position may also provide valuable experience and other competencies relevant to further career development.

If the successful candidate does not already possess educational competence that meets the requirements for a position as Associate Professor, UiS will facilitate the development of such competence during the employment period.

A career development plan will be prepared outlining the competencies the postdoctoral researcher is expected to acquire during the employment period. As a postdoctoral researcher at UiS, you will receive support for your professional and career development through supervision, competence development and career planning.

The qualifying work will be carried out at the University of Stavanger. The successful candidate is expected to work full-time on the project and participate actively in the academic community.

About the project

The postdoctoral researcher’s primary responsibility will be to develop and lead the Greenhouse Games Lab, with the aim of establishing an internationally recognized environment for research, development, education and innovation in environmentally themed board games. The postdoctoral researcher will establish procedures for developing and publishing board games that are quality-assured and improved through peer review.

We expect the postdoctoral researcher to be an active researcher who publishes at least two articles on board games and the environment during the employment period. One of these should be a review article providing an overview of the field and serving the wider research community. We also expect the postdoctoral researcher to prepare several applications for research, development and innovation funding from various sources, including the Research Council of Norway and the EU, in collaboration with societal partners and with support from researchers at the Greenhouse.

In addition, the postdoctoral researcher will be expected to establish a European network of game scholars, game developers, institutions and publishers, with the aim of organizing an annual workshop at the Greenhouse.

We are looking for candidates who combine research expertise in the environmental humanities, including related fields, with experience in game development. The position requires an entrepreneurial mindset and personal qualities that extend beyond research alone.

The postdoctoral researcher will be affiliated with the Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities, a research center at the University of Stavanger. The center is a strong international research environment that draws on history, literature, media, religion, philosophy and the arts to understand how people relate to nature and the environment. We offer a dynamic intellectual environment with weekly activities in which the successful candidate will be expected to participate.

More information about the Greenhouse is available at

https://www.uis.no/en/greenhouse.