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Two PhD research fellowships (SKO 1017) are available at ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo. The fellowships form part of the EU MSCA funded Doctoral Network project Contested EU Foreign Policy in an Era of Geopolitics (EUFOG). This announcement is for the Doctoral candidate (DC) no. 5, on the subject of Development policy and human rights. The announcement for the second position (DC 11), .

Applicants should hold a master’s degree in political science, European Studies, international relations, or another relevant social science discipline.

The position is announced for a duration of three years, with no teaching obligations. 

The starting date for the fellowship is 1 September 2025.

Job description 

PhD project

‘How deep are changes to the international role of the EU? The cases of development policy and human rights’ (DC05)

The two policy-domains of development and human rights have been considered central to the EU’s ‘normative power’. The project aims to identify and account for possible changes in the Union’s external policies with regard to these two policy domains, against the backdrop of the Union’s self-proclaimed ‘geopolitical turn’.

Supervision

The PhD fellow will be supervised by Research Professor Helene Sjursen at ARENA Centre for European Studies. Co-supervision will be offered by a senior scholar at another EUFOG partner university.

Secondments

The EUFOG doctoral network programme includes two six-month secondments for each DC. The secondments for each DC are planned at the respective EUFOG partner institutions.  DC 05 is required to carry out two secondments as part of the PhD project:

• A six month academic secondment at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Spain;
• A six month non-academic secondment at Clingendael (Netherlands Institute of International Relations), the Netherlands.

Network-wide training events and conferences

In addition to the secondments, a range of network-wide training events and conferences are planned in the EUFOG programme, across partner institutions. These are an integral part of the doctoral programme. All DCs must therefore be able and willing to travel during their PhD study period.

PhD programme

The successful candidate will be admitted to the PhD programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Oslo. You will have your base at ARENA Centre for European Studies. You will be expected to be based in Oslo.