PhD scholarships at the SDU Climate Cluster Elite Center Mobilizing Post-Anthropocentric Climate Action: A New Root Narrative (PACA)

Application deadline: September 3, 2024
The Department of Business & Management (DBM) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) invites applications for one or more 3-year PhD scholarships within the elite center PACA under the supervision of Patricia Wolf, Søren Askegaard and Bryan Yazell. The positions are located at SDU’s Campus in Odense and are vacant from 1st January, 2025 or soon thereafter.

Job description

As part of the PhD program, an individual education program within the field of business and management must be completed. The successful candidates will be expected to complete a six-month stay at a research institution abroad and, over the period of the program, to acquire experience of teaching or other types of presentation. S/he will also be expected to participate in the various activities within the center and – apart from the stay abroad – to be present on a daily basis.

The thesis will be an integral part of the SDU Climate Elite Centre project, “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. This project has the ambition to develop into an international hub for research on post-anthropocentric consumption and production systems as foundational for a sustainable economy.

The PhD will contribute to investigating post-anthropocentrism(s) as part of the project’s overall development of a post-anthropocentric ontology in social movements, communities, and industries. PACA is based on the hypothesis that a conceptual shift in the social sciences towards a post-anthropocentric narrative(s) can provide the imaginative basis for a different economy with different modes of production and consumption, thereby mobilizing what has been termed the emergent ecological class (Latour and Schultz 2022). The workload will be geared towards

• identifying production/consumption sectors with significant climate impact suitable for analyzing emergent post-anthropocentric narratives,
• analyzing the actor networks and the movement of network elements in initiatives that apply post-anthropocentric narratives,
• identifying patterns in the mobilization strategies and policy consequences contained in these narratives, as well as
• evaluating the effectiveness of selected systemic intermediary strategies used by universities to promote post-anthropocentric narratives in real-life settings (Mini Living Labs).

While all elements are central to the project, the main focus of this PhD position is on the post-anthropocentric narratives and alternative economic production and consumption models.

For further information, please contact professor Patricia Wolf [email protected], professor Søren Askegaard [email protected] or associate professor Bryan Yazell [email protected].

How to apply for this position
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 universities and the provisions for the position of PHD fellow as described herein.

Employment as a paid PhD fellow takes place in accordance with the circular of 20 December 2021 on the collective agreement for academics in the state – appendix 5, protocol on PhD fellowships. The scholarship runs for three years.

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

An application must include (all documents must be in Adobe PDF format):

• Detailed CV where education and work history must be month and year specific – if possible, including publications and teaching experiences.
• A certified copy of your master’s degree certificate including all examination results.
• Application form (please see below).
• A translation of grades according to the European ECTS system obtained in BA and MSc programs
• 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 PACA project. This description should also indicate how earlier work by the applicant relates to PACA’s research goals and explain the motivation for applying for this PhD position.

When applying for a PhD scholarship, please fill in the application form available on our web page. On the webpage of the PhD –school, you can find the guidelines for preparing your project proposal within the PhD program in Business Administration.

All non-Danish documents must be translated into English.

Documents should not contain a CPR number (civil registration number) – in this case, the CPR number must be crossed out.

The application and CV must not exceed 10 MB.

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.

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

As part of the overall assessment of the applicant’s qualifications, an interview may be applied.

Placering: Odense, Denmark