PhD Fellowship in Public safety, Underground applications and Spatial analysis

About this position

The University of Stavanger invites applicants for two vacant position as PhD Fellow in Public safety, Underground applications and Spatial analysis at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Safety, Economics, and Planning.

The PhD fellowship leads to a doctoral degree and gives you the opportunity to develop research expertise in an active and stimulating academic environment. Through the doctoral education, you will acquire knowledge, skills and experience that qualify you for a further career in research, higher education, and other knowledge-intensive sectors.t.

The successful candidate will be admitted to the PhD programme in Science and Technology. The programme includes coursework, an independent research project culminating in a doctoral thesis, participation in national and international research communities, dissemination of research, a trial lecture, and a public defence of the thesis. For more information about the PhD education at UiS, please visit

our website.

The position is for three years of pure research training.

As a PhD Fellow at UiS, you will receive supervision and support for your academic and professional development through mentoring, skills development, and career planning.

The position is externally funded by The Research Council of Norway.

Research Topic

The fellows will be affiliated with the

Research Centre for Innovative and Sustainable Underground Use

(CISU), a Centre for Research-Driven Innovation (SFI) funded by the Research Council of Norway. CISU is a triple helix collaboration between leading research institutions, industry partners and public sector organisations, and addresses pressing societal challenges: urban densification, climate change, geopolitical instability and the need for more resilient cities.

The core task of this position is mapping and analysis of the underground in one of the pilot cities — Stavanger and Trondheim, as well as Tromsø — using geographic information science as the primary methodological basis. The projects are located in Trondheim or Stavanger (one in each city), and are responsible for mapping their respective cities, and the projects collaborate on mapping Tromsø. In this way, case studies are established that will provide both opportunities for comparative analyses and more uniform analyses of the pilot cities based on the cities’ data material related to critical societal functions.

The students will work closely with the cities. Existing data material, such as GIS maps and databases, geological data (soil, rocks and groundwater), existing infrastructures and critical societal functions, relevant events, etc., will be systematically analysed, expanded, further developed, integrated and assessed against the cities' planning values ​​and opportunities for moving functions underground. The work may also use complementary spatial technologies such as digital twins, photogrammetry and spatial modelling.

Based on this GIS foundation, the candidates will continuously participate in co-creation arenas with the user partners in CISU to develop research directions within the CISU context.

The candidates' parallel projects enable direct comparison and knowledge transfer across urban contexts. Both candidates will be part of SFI-CISU, which during the centre period will have at least 13 PhD fellows working on innovation projects across the three pilot cities, with support from a dedicated PhD forum in SFI-CISU and an interdisciplinary supervision team from academia and industry. There are opportunities for international research stays and collaborations as part of the PhD study (some alternative locations are Singapore, Helsinki and Switzerland).

The fellows will contribute to answering the following preliminary research questions in the centre:

RQ1: To what extent are the precise locations and technical condition of existing underground infrastructure known?

RQ2: To what extent can transformation of existing infrastructure support critical societal functions in the future?

RQ3: To what extent can systematic use of the underground support sustainable urban development in the zero-emission society?

RQ4: How can underground spatial planning be integrated into urban development and infrastructure strategies?