项目介绍

2025年1月9日

About the job

Norwegian ferry quays are frequently exposed to extreme weather (environmental) and harsh operational loads, leading to sudden appearance of structural damage. Magerholm Research Quay (MRQ) was established in 2023 as a collaboration project between Møre og Romsdal County and NTNU, instrumented with vibration sensors for the purpose of developing a structural health monitoring system (SHM) to support decisions on asset maintenance. The objective is to enhance the resilience of ferry quays under the circumstances of unexpected hazards by means of implementing a monitored-enhanced resilience assessment system that is capable of providing sufficient information to support decisions from a very limited number of sensors. Your focus will be to investigate which hazards has the largest potential for affecting the functionality of ferry quays. More specific tasks are listed below.

The PhD position will be within our new research project SARTORIUS, which is funded by the Research Council of Norway. The aim of the project is to assess the ability for ferry quays to withstand and respond to hazard events, involving timely damage detection and accounting for the time needed to reinstate the structure to normal functionality. The project shall provide recommendations for how to best monitor these structures for maximized value of information. You will be working closely with a team of 3 other PhD candidates, professors and researchers from NTNU, The Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics and KU Leuven in Belgium. You will collaborate with Expert asset managers from Norwegian Public Roads Administration and Møre og Romsdal County. 

As a member of the project, you will participate in reporting and publishing the work at conferences and in scientific journals. Your working place will be NTNU Ålesund. At our department, (the department of ocean operations and civil engineering) you will be part of a large international research group, counting more than 40 PhD candidates. 

Your immediate leader is the head of the department.

Duties of the position

• execute a PhD project within 3 years (including obtaining own data for research) 
• complete training as part of the PhD degree, a minimum of 30 ECTS 
• prepare scientific journal articles and conference papers under supervision 
• present results from research at international scientific conferences and in dissertation
• Collect and process SHM data and met-ocean data for hazard identification
• Create a probabilistic hazard model to explore intensity, return periods and interconnections of hazards
• Crate fragility, idling and restoration curves for considered hazards
• Assess the importance of SHM data for the resilience estimation
• Develop IoT interface for resilience assessment
• Compile your findings into a PhD thesis
• The work tasks may be adjusted, depending on the background of the individual candidate and the team configuration.

Required selection criteria

• You must have a professionally relevant background in Civil Engineering or Structural Engineering.
• 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.
• You must meet the requirements for admission to the Faculty of Engineering’s doctoral program
• Master’s students can apply, but the planned finalization of the master’s degree must be documented. 
• Good written and oral English language skills. 

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 Philosodophiae Doctor (PhD) in artistic research national guidelines for appointment as PhD, post doctor and research assistant 

Preferred selection criteria

• Theoretical basis and practical experience within structural reliability, structural health monitoring, statistics, data analysis and programming, 
• Project management experience

Personal characteristics

• Ability to work independently as well as in teams
• Enthusiastic, with a keen interest in the wider context of own research
• Ability to take initiative and engage in cross-disciplinary teams
• Result oriented 
• Attention to detail and well organized
• Good networking- and communications skills 
• Inventiveness and a proactive approach  

Emphasis will be placed on personal and interpersonal qualities, and motivation for the position. 

We offer

• exciting and stimulating tasks in a strong international academic environment
• an open and inclusive work environment with dedicated colleagues
• favourable terms in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund
• employee benefits

Salary and conditions

As a PhD candidate (code 1017) you are normally paid from gross NOK 532 200 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. Desired start-up date is spring 2025.

Appointment to a PhD position requires that you are admitted to the PhD programme in Engineering within three months of employment, and that you participate in an organized PhD programme during the employment period. 

The engagement is to be made in accordance with the regulations in force concerning State Employees and Civil Servants, and the acts relating to Control of the Export of Strategic Goods, Services and Technology. Candidates who by assessment of the application and attachment are seen to conflict with the criteria in the latter law will be prohibited from recruitment to NTNU. 

After the appointment you must assume that there may be changes in the area of work.

The position is subject to external funding.

It is a prerequisite you can be present at and accessible to the institution on a daily basis.

About the application

The application and supporting documentation to be used as the basis for the assessment must be in English.

Publications and other scientific work must follow the application. Please note that your application will be considered based solely on information submitted by the application deadline. You must therefore ensure that your application clearly demonstrates how your skills and experience fulfil the criteria specified above.

The application must include:

• CV and certificates 
• Letter of motivation
• Transcripts and diplomas for bachelor’s and master’s degrees. If you have not completed the master’s degree, you must submit a confirmation that the master’s thesis has been submitted.
• A copy of the master’s thesis. If you recently have submitted your master’s thesis, you can attach a draft of the thesis. Documentation of a completed master’s degree must be presented before taking up the position.
• Project proposal (max 2 pages). 
• Name and contact information of three referees
• If you have publications or other relevant research work

If all, or parts, of your education has been taken abroad, we also ask you to attach documentation of the scope and quality of your entire education, both bachelor’s and master’s education, in addition to other higher education. Description of the documentation required can be found here. If you already have a statement from NOKUT, please attach this as well. 

We will take joint work into account. If it is difficult to identify your efforts in the joint work, you must enclose a short description of your participation.

In the evaluation of which candidate is best qualified, emphasis will be placed on education, experience and personal and interpersonal qualities. Motivation, ambitions, and potential will also count in the assessment of the candidates.

NTNU is committed to following evaluation criteria for research quality according to The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment – DORA.

General information

Working at NTNU

NTNU believes that inclusion and diversity is our strength. We want to recruit people with different competencies, educational backgrounds, life experiences and perspectives to contribute to solving our social responsibilities within education and research. We will facilitate for our employees’ needs.

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The city of Ålesund, with its population of 50 000, will provide you with plenty of opportunities to explore a region of Norway that is famous for its beautiful scenery with high mountains and blue fjords. Ålesund itself, with its Art Nouveau architecture, is by many considered to be the most beautiful city in Norway! The Norwegian welfare state, including healthcare, schools, kindergartens and overall equality, is probably the best of its kind in the world.

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As an employee at NTNU, you must at all times adhere to the changes that the development in the subject entails and the organizational changes that are adopted.

A public list of applicants with name, age, job title and municipality of residence is prepared after the application deadline. If you want to reserve yourself from entry on the public applicant list, this must be justified. Assessment will be made in accordance with current legislation. You will be notified if the reservation is not accepted.

If you have any questions about the position, please contact Associate Professor Torodd Skjerve Nord, email torodd.nord@ntnu.no. If you have any questions about the recruitment process, please contact Synnøve Sunde, email synnove.sunde@ntnu.no

If you think this looks interesting and in line with your qualifications, please submit your application electronically via jobbnorge.no with your CV, diplomas and certificates attached. Applications submitted elsewhere will not be considered. Upon request, you must be able to obtain certified copies of your documentation.  

Application deadline: 21.01.2025