A major challenge to managers and scientists today is to identify ways that oceans can provide food and other services in a sustainable way under changing climatic and socioeconomic conditions. As a changing climate and high harvesting put increased pressure on marine resources, scientists of the future need the cross-disciplinary skills to combine physical, biological, and social/economic science to give appropriate management advice. NorMER (www.normer.org) is a new Nordic Centre of Excellence, with funding from Nordforsk, on behalf of Top-level Research Initiative (TRI), and the participating institutions for 2011-2015, that will address this challenge through a unique program of primary research. 45 researches from 10 Nordic institutions will collaborate in training 17 new PhD students and 7 Postdocs through joint projects that explore the biological, economic, and societal consequences of global climate change on fisheries resources in the Nordic region, with a primary focus on the Atlantic cod. The NorMER partnership includes teams led by Nils Chr. Stenseth at the University of Oslo, Carl Folke of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, Erik Bonsdorff at Åbo Adakemi University in Finland, Marko Lindroos at the University of Helsinki in Finland, Markus Meier at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute in Sweden, Guðrún Marteinsdóttir at Marine Academic Research in Iceland, Eyðfinn Magnussen at the University of Faroe Islands, Helle Siegstad at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Øyvind Fiksen at the University of Bergen in Norway, and Thomas Kiørboe at the Technical University of Denmark. Each PhD project will be supervised and based at a single institution, but will require a mandatory visit to a partner institution of up to 4 months for co-supervision (see the detailed descriptions for each project for details). The Postdoc positions are additionally required to collaborate with multiple partner institutions.
Please see the list of available positions below to apply. Applicants are encouraged to apply for more than one position
Application deadline 30th March 2012:
Norway-Oslo-PhD
PhD position on statistical analysis of Russian and Norwegian zooplankton biomass data with unique temporal and spatial resolution.
Faroe-Islands-Torshavn-PhD
Spatial distribution of cod on the Faroe Plateau in relation to climate and other environmental conditions.
Finland-Aaland-PhD
The role of coastal benthic fauna as food for fish under the influence of environmental stress in the Baltic sea
Finland-Aaland-Postdoc
The importance of spatial habitat distribution for zoobenthos and juvenile fish under environmental change
Denmark-Charlottenlund-PhD
Understanding the link between shrimp recruitment and environmental factors for prediction of the possible effects of future climate change on the distribution and abundance
Norway-Bergen-PhD
How recruitment success of larval cod will depend upon changes in environmental and ecological conditions such as ocean temperature, alkalinity, primary production, optics and prey availability.