Postdoctoral Fellowship (07) at University of Bergen, Norway

This postdoctoral project combines research on legal perspectives in hydrogen and nuclear technology and is anchored in two related research projects HyValue and SAINT: 

• HyValue focuses on the production, transportation and consumption of hydrogen in a value-chain perspective. This part of the postdoctoral project should focus on the legal challenges and opportunities linked to hydrogen maritime applications, including its use as fuel, cargo and/or its handling and use in ports. More generally, the postdoctoral project should contribute with analysis on opportunities to develop maritime-linked hydrogen value chains (with a desired private law component) and study how regulations and economic incentives can be designed to avoid barriers and promote business models for hydrogen-based fuels (with a desired public law component).
• SAINT conducts research on civilian nuclear power as a zero-emission technology for global shipping. The goal is developing, testing and scaling solutions for commercial use – and identify the current regulatory gaps for such technology. This part of the postdoctoral project should focus on the policy and regulatory dimensions of developing solutions for civilian nuclear power with an aim to contribute with recommendations on both national and international law regimes as they relate to nuclear shipping and the commercialisation of civilian maritime applications using nuclear energy. Given the focus on commercialisation, a central part of this research should concern the private law dimension of the subject. 

The position will be affiliated with the DARS research group. The successful candidate is also expected to conduct research relevant to the broader scientific agenda associated with the Norwegian Computational Behaviour & AI Lab at UiB and to demonstrate an understanding of the research themes, methods, and long-term academic ambitions connected to this environment.

This position contributes directly to the scientific execution of ongoing and newly awarded externally funded projects within MediaFutures, including projects such as VaccAI and CuratedAI, while also contributing research that strengthens DARS and the broader scientific agenda associated with the Norwegian Computational Behaviour & AI Lab.

The successful candidate will strengthen research delivery, milestone completion, publication output, empirical validation, and structured execution in the centre’s final SFI phase while also helping position the Centre’s research portfolio for a focused post-SFI future.

MediaFutures is a Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI) funded by the Research Council of Norway and hosted by the University of Bergen. The centre is located at Media City Bergen and is closely connected to the Department of Information Science and Media Studies, the DARS research group, and adjacent computational social science and AI research environments at UiB.

MediaFutures conducts interdisciplinary research on responsible artificial intelligence and media technologies, including media trust, recommender systems, AI-driven content production and analysis, content interaction and accessibility, Norwegian language technology, and broader questions in computational social science and behavioural data science.

The centre produces scientific publications, prototypes, tools, and innovation outputs in close cooperation with industry partners. In the coming years, MediaFutures is also expected to play an important role in shaping possible post-SFI research structures and future research trajectories at UiB, including activities linked to DARS and to the broader scientific agenda associated with the Norwegian Computational Behaviour & AI Lab.

We invite original and ambitious project proposals within the fields of art history, social anthropology, ethnology, and archaeology. Proposals that cross disciplinary boundaries and adopt an innovative, comparative, or interdisciplinary perspective are particularly welcome. 

In 2025, the University Museum of Bergen celebrated its 200th anniversary, coinciding with the temporary closure of the Cultural History Museum building for extensive renovation. In preparation for the reopening, the Department of Cultural History is determined to increase attention to new critical perspectives on both the history and future of its collections: their societal significance, their potential role in education, and their capacity to inspire innovation. We encourage projects that explore how an “old” museum and the heritage it safeguards can inform urgent contemporary debates around identity, heritage, migration, cultural encounters, and sustainability. Possible approaches might concern, for example, the colonial legacies of collections, the ethics of collecting practices, or reflect on the broader questions of what a “new museum” could mean as an institutional and cultural innovation.

We are seeking a candidate with documented experience in the field of Cultural Heritage Studies and/or Museum Studies, as well as a demonstrated interest in how collections are created, presented, interpreted, and re-contextualized in new and innovative ways, whether visual, digital, or interactive. We welcome projects with theoretical ambitions (whether rooted in a disciplinary tradition or engaging with digital humanities), as well as those with societal relevance, originality, and creativity in rethinking the role of collections in today’s world.

The Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship in Social Anthropology. The position is fully funded by the European Research Council (ERC) through the project GENMAR (2026–2031). The successful candidate’s postdoctoral project must therefore make a clear and substantial contribution to the themes and objectives of GENMAR. 

Prospective candidates must present a project proposal ethnographically situated in either Brazil, Tanzania or Thailand. Further instructions about the project proposal are outlined below.