Postdoctoral Fellow within the Interreg project FUSION

The Department of Business & Management (DBM) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) invites applications for one or more 30-months Post Doc position(s) within the Interreg project Facilitating collective climate future envisioning among the youth in the Danish-German border region: Shaping actionable strategies and common initiatives/FUSION. The positions are located at SDU’s Campus in Odense and are vacant from 1st May 2025 or soon thereafter.

Job description

The applicant is expected to hold a PhD degree relevant to the topics of the fellowship.

PhD candidates about to complete will also be considered and should attach a statement from their supervisors regarding their impending completion.

Climate change is a phenomenon that threatens the Danish – German Interreg region on both sides of the border, requiring well aligned actions across nation states as it can only be mitigated through collaborative collective efforts and behavioral changes of all citizens. At the same time, we observe that the majority of high school students in the Danish-German border region suffers from climate anxiety and a lack of positive outlook that makes them feel powerless. FUSION aims to break the paralysis in which these students are trapped, educate them in the collective imagination of positive climate futures, and empower them to develop and implement joint climate change initiatives across borders in the program region. It is a collaborative project involving two university and seven school partners from Denmark and Germany.

To reach these overarching objectives, FUSION will develop an innovative education format: A teaching module for English language education at secondary education institutions. This module includes creative future fiction writing, cross-border in-class analysis, and a cross-border camp with job profile fair. FUSION starts from the collection of English short stories which it then, through a process of match making amongst pupils with similar future perspectives across high schools and nation states, uses as a bridge to rekindle curiosity into the language of the other. The module will facilitate the establishment of cross-border networks amongst like-minded young people, the collective imagination of positive climate change futures, and the development of individual actionable strategies, job profiles and common climate change initiatives across borders. FUSION further develops a learning platform that ensures open access to all produced teaching material, (anonymized) stories, and automized story overview summaries. This platform will ensure the further implementability of the teaching module in high schools and the continuous actualization of the overview on pupils’ future climate visions and cross-border collaboration initiatives beyond the project’s end, thereby establishing an important resource of information for decision making oriented towards climate change mitigation in the region.

The Post Doc will be involved in all parts and activities of FUSION. The workload will be geared towards

- participation in the steering and coordination of the project consortium,

- eliciting and analyzing youth-imagined far-future climate narratives,

- identifying common social imaginaries across borders,

- designing and conducting event formats that apply performative play and improvisation theatre to stimulate the creation of collective cross-border narratives and initiatives,

- evaluating the effectiveness and impact of the created networks and initiatives.

FUSION is part of the project portfolio of the SDU Climate Elite Centre “Mobilizing Post-Anthropocentric Climate Action: A New Root Narrative” (PACA). PACA seeks to map post-anthropocentric social theories that challenge the nature-culture divide and investigate traces of these theories in the population. It assesses the extent to which such practices and beliefs can provide a positive narrative for a new organization of production and consumption practices and, finally, the role of universities as mediators of the emergent post-anthropocentrism.

The successful candidate will also be expected to teach in the area of organizational change and strategic and innovation management.

The successful candidate will participate in the various activities within the department and is expected to be present on a daily basis.

For further information, please contact professor Patricia Wolf pawo@sam.sdu.dk or associate professor Bryan Yazell yazell@sdu.dk.

How to apply for this position

Potential applicants must be post-doc qualified in accordance with the Danish Ministerial order on job structure for academic staff at Danish universities.

The appointment takes place in accordance with the collective agreement between the Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations for academics in the Danish state with the associated circular on the protocol on job structure for academic staff at Danish universities and the provisions for the position of postdocs as described herein.

For more information on the department guidelines for qualification and recruitment please visit our web.

An application must include:

- Motivated application

- Detailed CV where education and work history must be month and year specific.

- Certificates/Diplomas (Master and PhD degree). If the PhD hasn’t been completed, please attach a statement from your supervisors regarding your impending completion.

- Complete list of publications, indicating which publications are most relevant for the position.

- Research plan

- Teaching portfolio – you can find instructions for this here.

- Up to 2 of the most relevant publications. Please upload a pdf for each publication. If your publications have been co-authored, please briefly describe the extent of the co-authorship or your contribution to the individual joint publication. You can do so by using this form or you can describe the co-authorship in such a way that the committee can assess the extent of your contribution.

- A description (3 – 5 pages of 2400 characters each, including spaces, notes, appendices, bibliography, etc.) of the applicant’s envisioned role and contribution to the FUSION project. This description should also indicate how to earlier work by the applicant relates to FUSION’s research goals and explain the motivation for applying for this Post Doc position.

All non-Danish documents must be translated into English. They shouldn’t contain a CPR number (civil registration number), if they do – the CPR number must be crossed out.

Applications will be assessed by an assessment committee. The committee may request additional information, and if so, it is the responsibility of the candidates to provide the necessary material.

When the assessment committee has submitted its report, the candidates will receive the part of the evaluation that concerns them. The assessment report will subsequently be forwarded to the Head of Department who will assemble an appointments committee. The appointments committee will manage and complete the job interviews, should such be conducted.

Shortlisting and tests may be used in the assessment process.

Applications that are incomplete with regard to the above requirements may be rejected without any substantive evaluation.

Deadline for applications is: February 13, 2025, 23.59 CET. Applications must be submitted electronically using the link "Apply now on our website.

The University of Southern Denmark wishes to reflect the surrounding community and therefore encourages everyone, regardless of personal background, to apply for the position.