RJ Flexit 2017
RJ invites applications for Flexit jobs, i.e. six in-house research positions at companies or organisations ('host establishments') in Sweden.
Flexit is a project that seeks new, flexible solutions to spread research and researchers outside higher education institutions (HEIs). Its main purposes are:
- To build bridges between humanities and social sciences (HSS) research and companies and organisations outside academia.
- To facilitate knowledge exchange and encourage contacts so that more non-academic organisations can perceive and profit from the expertise of postdoctoral HSS specialists.
We also hope, through this programme, to point out alternative career opportunities for HSS researchers. In the long term, RJ seeks to influence the academic merit system so that academia values experience from the business world more highly, and vice versa.
Experience to date has been very good, both for the host establishments and for the researchers. In the new version of Flexit, we hope to enhance academic institutions' involvement in the programme and bridge-building. After an evaluation of the Flexit pilot project, RJ has opened the programme to senior researchers as well and organised the positions so that the researcher is employed at the host establishment (company or organisation) for two years, followed by a year at an HEI. Accordingly, applicants must have established affiliations to their departments by the time of the application.
The companies and organisations taking part in this Flexit call are Bräcke diakoni, Welfare Department, City Office, City of Malmö, Culture Administration, City of Gothenburg, Norrbottens Kommuner, R&D&I, Education Administration, Piteå Municipality and Spotify.
Below, they describe the research areas that interest them. As a prospective Flexit researcher, your task is to transform the issues into an inspiring and practical research plan. Get in touch with the contact persons for the organisations concerned to discuss your ideas and so that you can draw up a research plan with a realistic budget.
You are welcome to contact current Flexit researchers as well.
Research on quality in health and social care
Bräcke diakoni
Bräcke diakoni is one of Sweden's largest non-profit health and social care providers. We provide a broad range of services within elderly care, primary care, and rehabilitation, and we also work within disabilities and refugee services. As part of our public mission, we are expanding quickly while being challenged to find a balance between different quality demands and pricing pressure from procurement processes and our vision of a more compassionate society.
To address these challenges, we need research-based knowledge on how we can further develop our organisation so that it is focused on creating value for the individuals we serve, on employee involvement, and on measurements that are relevant at all levels of the system. Examples of research questions:
- How can non-profit organisations develop their management skills to allow them to compete on a market while focusing on meeting the needs of those they serve?
- How to support employees in developing, together with those they serve, the health and care services of tomorrow?
- How to support managers in focusing on quality and value creation in a reality marked by day-to-day operational challenges?
- How can measurements of health and social care quality be designed to be relevant at all levels of the system to create learning and improvement?
Are you interested in conducting research on these types of questions? Within the framework of the RJ's Flexit initiative, we are looking for a committed researcher who would like to take on the challenge of contributing to a more compassionate society. In your application, please include a research plan describing how you would like to address one or more of the above questions. Alternatively, you can approach the problem from a different perspective. Please describe your thoughts on the translation of research results into concrete practice.
We think that the successful applicant will have a PhD in behavioural science, business administration, or social work or is conducting research on quality or innovation, but we are also open to other relevant subjects.
The research will be carried out within the Quality Department at Bräcke diakoni, which already also collaborates closely with Ersta Sköndal University College, Jönköping University and Chalmers, but of course we welcome applications from other higher education institutions. The position can be located in either Gothenburg or Stockholm.
Read more at: www.brackediakoni.se
Contact
Thomas Schneider, PhD, Quality Manager
Phone: +46-(0)708-108157
E-mail: thomas.schneider@brackediakoni.se
Research on participant-driven processes in the public sector
Culture Administration, City of Gothenburg
For some time, the Culture Administration has been actively working with participant-driven processes, user dialogues and inclusion issues within the framework of various projects and aimed at improving its operations. Various methods have been tried and much of the Administration has incorporated participation as a natural aspect of its work. There are also increased political and societal demands to listen to residents, users and visitors in public activities. Within the arts and culture, the need to add more and new voices has become obvious. However, there is currently no overall picture of the work that has already been carried out.
To develop the Culture Administration, we need to improve and systematise our knowledge of participant-driven processes. What is meant by participation and what is a participant-driven process? What power aspects do we need to be aware of? What knowledge production takes place in the projects?
If this sounds interesting, you are the researcher we are looking for to contribute to our knowledge of participatory processes in a practice-based development environment. In your application, please include a research plan describing how you would like to address one or more of the above questions. Alternatively, you can approach the problem from a different perspective. Applicants could have a PhD in sociology, cultural geography, ethnology, political science or other relevant subject.
The Culture Administration is one of the City of Gothenburg's main departments. The Administration has approximately 400 employees, and its operations are divided into three areas: libraries, museums and fine arts & culture. Additionally, this year the Administration has set up a small strategic culture department to manage strategic issues internally and externally.
Read more at www.goteborg.se/kultur
Contact
Anna Rosengren, Administration Director
The City of Gothenburg
The Culture Administration
Phone: +46(0)31-368 32 18, +46(0)706-67 00 92
E-mail: anna.rosengren@kultur.goteborg.se
Research on integration and social sustainability
Welfare Department, City Office, City of Malmö
Malmö is a fast-growing city with a thriving business community and strong growth. Global, regional and national changes, however, affect Malmö and its residents in several ways. Examples of this include global financial cycles, changes in national and social support systems, urbanisation and migration. As a result, Malmö is also characterised by a high degree of child poverty and structural homelessness. Since 2010, Malmö has been consciously working to reduce health disparities through increased social sustainability. Good health and equally distributed health are essential for sustainable growth socially, economically and ecologically. The City of Malmö's specific conditions raises questions about how to include all of Malmö's residents in the city. We are therefore interested in research on integration and social sustainability:
How can efforts for greater social sustainability be combined with the specific conditions that apply to Malmö's population? Can we discern structures that promote making a living and housing in the integration that the municipality can support? Are there factors in these structures that can be used on a national level? What are success factors for integration? How can the city work for integration from a socially sustainable perspective?
Do you think these questions are interesting and do you want to do research on questions about integration linked to social sustainability in a dynamic and multicultural city? Within the framework of the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond's Flexit initiative, we are looking for a committed researcher who wants to take on the challenge of contributing to future urban development in the City of Malmö. In your application, please include a research plan describing how you would like to address one or more of the above questions. Alternatively, you can approach the problem from a different perspective. Please also describe your thoughts on how to translate research results into concrete practice.
Applicants can have a PhD in social work, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, economic history, political science, ethics, practical philosophy or other relevant subject.
The Flexit position is at the Welfare Department at the Malmö's City Office. The Flexit position gives the researcher access to organisational statistics in relevant areas: population, income support, employment programmes and the business community. The Welfare Department supports the city's administrations in planning, monitoring and developing health and social care, including the Support and Service Act (LSS), municipal health and medical services, individual and family care, public health, neighbourhood efforts, gender mainstreaming, integration and anti-discrimination. The department also monitors the municipal executive board's responsibility for pre-school, school and educational activities, as well as leisure and culture service. The Welfare Department has a special responsibility for the continued efforts to make Malmö socially sustainable. The department consists of three units: Nursing and Care, R&D & Social Sustainability, and Individuals & Families and Children and Youth.
Read more at http://malmo.se/Kommun--politik/Organisation/Forvaltningar/Stadskontoret.html
Contact
Agneta Mallén, R&D Coordinator, City of Malmö, City Office, Welfare Department, R&D Socially Sustainable Development
Phone: + 46 (0)70 918 67 70, + 46 (0)40 34 77 82
E-mail: agneta.mallen@malmo.se
Research on collaborative public health efforts for children and youth
Norrbottens Kommuner, R&D&I
Education is one of the most important factors for good health. Health and learning in school are interrelated and are largely affected by the same factors: feeling safe and a sense of well-being, participation, empowerment and connectedness. A good learning environment in school also promotes good health.
Mental illness is increasing in children and youth, both in Norrbotten County and in the country as a whole. For county councils and municipalities, it is urgent to reverse this trend. Health conversations in schools are a key, if underutilised, resource that we need to develop. By better understanding them, these conversations can be used as an effective development and knowledge tool in public health efforts with children and youth.
Health conversations are held by school nurses as part of their regular assignments. Norrbotten, together with the counties of Västerbotten, Jämtland and Västernorrland, developed an approach that links health conversations to a questionnaire that is stored in a database. In our ongoing efforts to build a collaborative organisation around these health conversations, in Norrbotten County we have noted a need for more knowledge and research on creating a health-promoting organisation, where local and regional stakeholders meet to collaborate on child and youth health. Examples of key questions for this are:
- How do participating stakeholders create and perceive health-promoting efforts and organisations working to collaborate on child and youth health?
- How could a joint agenda for promoting child and youth health be described from the perspective of professionals, children and youth?
- How are these health conversations viewed by professionals, children and youth, and what are their thoughts on options for promoting health literacy and contribute to equality in health?
- How are learning and health described and understood based on an educational perspective and an educational practice?
Does this sound like interesting and important development work that deserves to be studied more closely and linked to research? Norrbottens Kommuner is looking for a researcher interested in practise-based research in the field of child and youth health and learning. In your application, please include a research plan describing how you would like to address one or more of the above questions and how you view the interaction between research and practice. Alternatively, you can approach the problem from a different perspective. We envision that applicants have a PhD in health sciences, pedagogy, sociology or social work, but we are also open to other relevant subjects.
You will be included in the Research & Development & Innovation (R&D&I) environment at Norrbottens Kommuner responsible for the implementation of the development work, in close cooperation with Norrbotten County Council's Public Health Centre. As part of the position, we also want you to actively contribute to improving our organisation and the R&D&I environment.
Norrbottens Kommuner is an association representing the country's 14 northernmost municipalities. Our mission is to protect municipal interests, promote their cooperation and contribute to sustainable community development in the county's municipalities. The overall goal of the R&D&I environment is to help broaden and deepen needs-based knowledge development in the municipalities that is based on science and proven experience.
For more information in Swedish about Norrbottens Kommuner, visit www.norrbottenskommuner.se and about health conversations in schools and Norrbotten County Council's work http://www.nll.se/elevhalsosamtal
Contact
Catarina Lundqvist, Scientific manager in Education and Learning at R&D&I Norrbottens Kommuner.
Phone: +46(0)70-6935433
E-mail: catarina.lundqvist@kfbd.se
Research on integrating research into school instruction
Education Administration, Piteå Municipality
Under the Education Act, instruction in schools is to be based on research and proven experience. Municipalities, schools and teachers face major challenges in practically integrating science and research into school instruction. The challenge seems particularly big for teachers who teach subjects with a weak scientific basis, the arts, or vocational subjects or who teach younger students/children. To meet this challenge, we need to know more about how research that starts from teachers' questions and knowledge needs can be integrated through collaboration between the municipalities and academia.
- What ideas, strategies and documents govern and are governed by the different actors in integrating practice-based research in teaching?
- Which dilemmas arise in the meeting between municipalities and academia when school-based research is to be integrated in educational practices?
- What problems, questions and knowledge are revealed through practice-based research by teachers?
- What are the differences and similarities between research by teachers on different subject practicies and other teaching practicies?
- How can the profession and the municipal organisation make use of teachers' knowledge to develop school instruction?
If you are interested in working with and conducting practice-based research, now it is possible. Piteå Municipality is looking for a researcher who wants to contribute knowledge of the municipality's efforts to link instruction to research. In your application, please include a research plan describing how you would like to address one or more of the above questions. Alternatively, you can approach the problem from a different perspective. Also describe how you want to contribute to building and strengthening collaborative systems for teacher knowledge development between municipalities and teacher education programmes.
We envision that applicants have a PhD in subjects within the educational sciences, such as pedagogy, educational work, didactics or learning with a focus on the fine arts, but we are also open to other relevant subjects that are clearly practice-oriented.
You will be part of a team of researchers and teachers in Piteå Municipality's Education Sciences Council (PUR). PUR is a municipal council for collaboration between teachers in the municipality and teachers with postgraduate studies in teacher education. The purpose of PUR is to promote scientific efforts and the formation of scientific structures for the development of school, education and the teaching profession with a scientific basis in Piteå.
Read more about Piteå Municipality's work with research and development in schools at www.pitea.se/forskningoutveckling
Contact
Kristina Hansson, scientific director, Piteå Municipality's Education Administration
Phone: +46(0)911-696227, +46(0)70-2811165
E-mail: kristina.hansson@pitea.se
Research on the role of music in a digital society
Spotify
Spotify is a technology company by design, and a music company at heart. Advanced techniques are not only used to build music recommendations, but also to understand our users and their behavior. In this project, we would like to explore the ways we can make use of our data and technology to further our knowledge from a social sciences and humanistic perspective.
In the past decade, an increasing amount of effort has been spent on studying psychological and social aspects of music. For example, there are studies attempting to shed light on the links between music and aspects of social behaviour (Hargreaves & North, 1997, 1999), as well as the role of music as a constituent factor of individuals' social identity (North, Hargreaves, & O'Neill, 2000; Tekman & Hortaçsu, 2002). We would like to continue these efforts with research questions such as:
- How is music used for social identification in an expanding digital landscape?
- What are the differences between various 'musical needs' and consumption patterns?
- How does having access to a large catalog of music for a fixed price change the way we consume music?
- How can we understand what people are looking for when starting to use the music service?
We are looking for a researcher within the Flexit initiative who is willing to tackle these questions and drive knowledge forward. We expect you to write a research plan that describes how you wouldaddress one or more of the questions above. We are also open to other related questions that you believe would be of interest for us and/or society.
We expect you to have a PhD in Social sciences or in the Humanities such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethnology, cultural studies or other relevant subjects. It is also advantageous if you have experience with data science and tools for analysing data. The research will be conducted in collaboration with Spotify's Analytics Research team and your university.
Contact
Santiago Gil
E-mail: santiago@spotify.com
Structure of Flexit positions
The positions are for a maximum of three years, and consist of 75% research and 25% service first at the host establishment and thereafter at the HEI department. RJ funds salary costs and other expenses relating to the research, while the host establishment pays salary for the remainder of the position and bears the costs of office workspace, office infrastructure and various benefits at the workplace. For the first two years, the host establishment is the employer and appoints a contact person for the researcher, who is based on the premises as an in-house researcher but is expected to retain and develop contacts with academia.
During the third year of the project, the researcher is based at an HEI department, continues with the research in the Flexit project and maintains contacts with the host establishment. During the third year, when the researcher is located at the academic department, RJ's grants cover indirect costs and costs of premises.
Who is eligible to apply?
The applicant must have obtained a doctoral degree in a subject in humanities or social sciences (HSS). The applicant should also have good social skills and good networks both inside and outside the research community.
Application
Every researcher must send in a certificate from an HEI department. This letter must bear the signature of the head of department or equivalent and reach RJ not later than the deadline, which is 4:00 pm on 8 February 2017. The certificate must also be included with the application and placed after the application letter and CV under the heading 'Publications'.
The head of department's certificate (in Word) should also contain information about what the affiliation will include during the first two years of the Flexit project (a maximum grant of SEK 30,000 a year is payable for administrative costs of affiliation during the first two years of the project). Affiliation should include access to library services, copying facilities and some administrative assistance. The certificate from the department also guarantees that the department has the intention of employing the researcher during the third year of the project.
Selection process
After an expert review, organised by RJ, interviews will be conducted during April and May 2017. The contact persons at the host establishments (companies and organisations) will invite applicants to interviews, and any allowance for travel expenses will be paid by RJ. The positions will be filled between 1 July 2017 and 31 December 2017.
The application system will be open from 9 January 2017. Applications must reach RJ by 4:00 pm on 8 February 2017.
Applications are submitted via rj.se. Read the instructions under 'Make an application' to the right.
- Specify the host establishment for your position in the heading and the application letter. Under the heading 'Publikationer' ('Publications'), you should place the head of department's certificate, a CV (describing your qualifications, including an account of your connection with a Swedish HEI), names of referees and a brief list of publications. Under 'Anslagsförvaltare' ('Grant administrator'), specify the HEI department that will host you. Specify the HEI's employer's social-insurance contribution top-up rate (LKP ). The salary you state in the application must be based on current salary, which also applies during the project (including the customary salary revision). The same thing applies to the budget item 'Drift' ('Operating costs'). The operating costs specified under the heading Comments on the budget need to be well founded and are (if approved) the ones that will apply to the project.
- For every project grant, RJ also awards an internationalisation grant. This grant may be used for research stays abroad, inviting foreign research colleagues, national and international conference travel, and language editing of material in languages other than Swedish. Accordingly, do not list these costs in your application.
- RJ also grants funding for publication with open access. These costs should therefore not be listed in the application either.
- Apart from your personal letter, the head of department's certificate (in Word) and your CV, the application should contain titles and summaries in Swedish and English, and a research plan with particulars of the research that the applicant wishes to conduct, on the basis of the research area specified by the company or organisation (under the heading Project description).
- The research plan should cover the purpose, disposition, theory, method and implementation of the research and how it relates to the international research frontline. The plan should also clarify how the researcher is planning to strengthen ties and facilitate knowledge exchange between academia and the business sector. The plan may not exceed 20,000 characters, including spaces, in length.
The applicant is responsible for ensuring that the research is compatible with the ethical guidelines laid down by the Swedish Research Council, and that ethical assessment is carried out where required.
If you have any questions about the positions, contact Torbjörn Eng, torbjorn.eng@rj.se, phone +46-(0)8-50 62 64 22, but also the host establishment concerned and its contact person.
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