Research Assistant position on a human-centered history of medical plastics

About the position 

The Institute for Health and Society is recruiting 1 Research associate to assist with archival and oral history research on the history of plastics in healthcare. In this position you will join an interdisciplinary and multinational team of researchers in the Wellcome Trust-funded Discovery Grant project ‘After the Single Use: Rethinking Medical Devices for Reuse, Resilience and Renewal’. It is a five-year anthropological and historical research project examining the history, circulation and discard of single-use plastics in global healthcare with the aim to understand how and why we came to naturalize and normalize disposability in healthcare and ways to collaborate to reduce it. The project involves research teams in 8 different countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the US. This research associate position will be part of the Norwegian team and focus on the history of healthcare plastics in Norway and can last for up to three years. It is also possible that the position can be expanded to 30% position.

As a research associate, you will have the responsibility for assisting the Norwegian PI with archival research and performing oral history interviews surrounding the shift from reuse to disposability in the healthcare sector, as well as organize witness seminars with retired healthcare personnel and stakeholders; co-author publications and other research outputs, and contribute to other project related tasks and events.

We are seeking a candidate with a bachelor or master degree in history or related fields with experience in archival work and/or oral history interviews. Preferably, they should also have good knowledge of the health sector, obtained either by research or practical work.

More about the position

The research assistant will be employed by the Institute of Health and Society (Helsam) at the University of Oslo. Academic staff are formally employed by the Institute but have their primary workplace and disciplinary home within one of its departments. The research assistant will be based at the Section for Medical Humanities, one of three sections in the Department of Community Medicine and Global Health. The department is a dynamic, internationally oriented environment that brings together researchers from medicine, the social sciences, and the humanities. Its research spans global health, medical anthropology, epidemiology, and medical history, fostering a collegial and creative academic culture.
In the Section for Medical Humanities anthropologists and historians work together to investigate the cultural, historical, and social dimensions of health and medicine — from everyday experiences of illness to the ways medical knowledge, technologies, and policies shape societies.

Responsibilities 

• Assist Norwegian PI in exploring relevant archives in Norway and abroad regarding all aspects relevant to the transition from reuse to single use in Norwegian hospitals and primary healthcare (eg production and procurement, transition of labor, use in practice and discard (30%).
• Conduct background research related to this shift e.g. literature, media, web, grey literature searches and summaries (10%).
• Carry out data collection related to this shift, e.g. a) conducting oral history interviews with retired health personnel and b) organize witness seminars on the history of medical plastics (including doing research on who should be possible participants (30%).
• Provide research assistance and contribute to the overall project activities (event organising, updating the project bibliography, stakeholder engagement, knowledge exchange activities, producing content for website, data management and storage, participating in project meetings etc). This will involve travel nationally and internationally for purposes of participation in events and workshops, as well as co-writing (20%).
• Work closely with the Norwegian project lead and Healthcare Without Harm Work to develop and implement the Norwegian part of the project’s communications and stakeholder engagement plan, knowledge exchange and impact activities, and events related to governance of plastics in health care in Norway (10%).

Qualifications

In this role you must

• Hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian bachelors degree in history or closely related field
• Have excellent written and oral proficiency in Norwegian and English
• Have excellent organisational and administrative skills, including time management
• Have demonstrated good academic writing skills
• Be good at communicating complex information clearly, orally and in writing, to a range of different groups

 

In this role it is an advantage if you have

• Experience in supporting academic events or seminars
• Basic knowledge of the Norwegian healthcare system
• Knowledge of the history of plastics, infrastructure and health systems
• Knowledge of sustainability in the health sector in Norway
   

We are looking for a person who

• Is willing to commit to do impactful research and be motivated to acquire the necessary skills
• Has the ability to work effectively both independently and as a member of a team
• Has an interest in developing skills in creative and collaborative research methodologies together with other researchers from different parts of the world
• Is willing to make an effort to contribute to a positive research community and has ideas about what such contributions could be
• Wants to be part of the intellectual and research life at the Institute for Health and Society through physical attendance for an agreed amount of time

Employment in the position is based on a comprehensive assessment of all qualification requirements applicable to the position, including personal qualifications.

We need different perspectives in our work 

UiO is an open and internationally oriented comprehensive university that strives to be an inclusive and diverse workplace and academic environment. You can read more about UiO’s work on equality, inclusion, and diversity at uio.no.

We fulfill our mission most effectively when we draw upon our variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. We are looking for great colleagues—could you be the next one?

We will do our best to accommodate your needs. Relevant adjustments may include modifications to working hours, task adaptations, digital, technical, or physical adjustments, or other practical measures.

If you have an immigrant background, a disability, or CV gaps (Norwegian), we encourage you to indicate this in the job application portal. We always invite at least one qualified candidate from each group for an interview. In this context, disability is defined as an applicant who identifies as having a disability that requires workplace or employment-related accommodations. For more details about the requirements, please refer to the Employer portal (Norwegian).

The selections made in the job application portal are used for anonymized statistics that all state employers include in their annual reports.

We hope you will apply for the position with us. 

We can offer

• Exciting and meaningful tasks in an organization with an important societal mission, contributing to knowledge development, education, and enlightenment that promote sustainable, fair, and knowledge-based societal development.
• Involvement in a large international research project that provides opportunities to build a network with scholars around the world
• Opportunity to develop your interdisciplinary skills through working with scholars with competences ranging from medicine and public health to anthropology and history and art.
• Good welfare schemes.
• Membership in the Statens Pensjonskasse, which is one of Norway's best pension schemes with beneficial mortgages and good insurance schemes.
• Salary in position as Research Assistant position code 1019 NOK 465 000/position code 1020 NOK 527 500 depending on competence and experience. From the salary, 2 percent is deducted in statutory contributions to the State Pension Fund.

Read more about the benefits of working in the public sector at Employer Portal.

Application

Your application should include:

• A full university transcript, showing the courses/modules taken and marks for individual courses and for a master thesis
• A CV of no more than two pages.
• Two references from academic staff who have direct experience of your work, including (if possible) your bachelor or master thesis supervisor.
• A writing sample of between 4,000-10,000 words (eg coursework essay or dissertation)
• A personal statement of up to two pages that addresses the following questions and issues (in any format or order)
  •    Why you are interested in this research assistant position 
  •    Your relevant experience and training for this research assistant position (including your experience with archival work and/or oral history interviews)
  •    Areas of scholarship and literature you would be interested in engaging with and contributing to as part of the project
  •    Your longer-term career plans and how this project will help you to progress them, including any training that you would hope to receive as part of the project

Application with attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system Jobbnorge, click "Apply for the position".

When applying for the position, we ask you to retrieve your education results from Vitnemålsportalen.no. If your education results are not available through Vitnemålsportalen, we ask you to upload copies of your transcripts or grades. Please note that all documentation must be in English or a Scandinavian language.

General information

The best qualified candidates will be invited for interviews. 

Applicant lists can be published in accordance with Norwegian Freedom of Information Act § 25. When you apply for a position with us, your name will appear on the public applicant list. It is possible to request to be excluded from this list. You must justify why you want an exemption from publication and we will then decide whether we can grant your request. If we cannot, you will hear from us.

Employment as a Research Assistant may not exceed 2.0 FTE, and candidates may not have been previously employed in this role at UiO.

Please refer to Regulations for the Act on universities and colleges chapter 3 (Norwegian).

The University of Oslo has a transfer agreement with all employees that is intended to secure the rights to all research results etc.