PhD position within Aquaculture Economics– Balancing profitability with environmental sustainability in investment and operations under uncertainty
There is a temporary PhD position for 3 years available at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management – Section Managerial Economics, Finance and Operation Research. The position is resident at NTNUs campus in Trondheim. This is an educational position, which will provide promising research recruits the opportunity for professional development through studies towards a PhD-degree. The position is connected to the PhD program at the Faculty of Economics and Management and the faculty will be your employer.
The mission of Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management is to carry out education and research activities at a high international level in the intersection between technology/natural sciences and business economics, management, and HSE to promote sustainable value creation in technology-based areas in industry, business, and public sector organizations in Norway.
The PhD position will be part of the research project Risk-Resilient Aquaculture: Balancing Profitability with Environmental Sustainability in Investment and Operations under Uncertainty (AquaRisk).
About the project
This project aims to address these knowledge gaps by developing the tools and instruments to improve the decision-making expertise within the Norwegian aquaculture industry to best mitigate profitability risks, while at the same time incorporating environmental sustainability aspects into investment and operational decisions.
The project is structure in three Work Packages:
• Risk assessment: Identifying, modeling, and quantifying key risks, as well as integrating risk models into decision-making processes.
• Environmental impact assessment: Evaluating the sustainability performance of individual companies based on relevant indicators, enabling informed and responsible decision-making.
• Valuation of investment and operational strategies: Assessing investment and operational strategies under multiple sources of uncertainty and environmental constraints.
The project is a collaboration between NTNU, University of Inland Norway of Southeast Norway, NORCE, University of Florida, and Umeå University.
About the position
An increase in the global population has created a growing demand for high-quality marine proteins, creating a potential for the aquaculture industry (with salmon aquaculture as one example) to satisfy the need for expansion in seafood production. Nonetheless, several environmental challenges the industry is facing today limit its growth potential. Achieving the dual objective of profitability and environmental sustainability introduces several challenges for aquaculture producers. The first challenge is that production in the aquaculture sector is vulnerable to several sources of uncertainty, including market risk and biological risk, which significantly influence operational stability, profitability, and growth prospects. At the same time, while many environmental and biological risks are intrinsically tied to financial profitability, there are also externalities that do not directly impact profitability yet pose significant sustainability challenges. Currently, the industry as well as policy makers lack tools to explicitly integrate such externalities into actual decision-making processes.
This PhD will contribute to the field by exploring new methods and modelling frameworks for integrating multiple risk perspectives, and environmental sustainability considerations in a decision framework for investment and operational management in the aquaculture industry. Research areas include:
• Assessing risks and environmental impacts of individual aquaculture companies.
• Evaluating investment value in sustainable technologies.
• Designing strategies to enhance profitability and sustainability under uncertainty.
The workload is expected to result in 3-4 academic articles, contributing to at least two work packages.
You will report to your supervisor, Associate Professor Maria Lavrutich.
Duties of the position
• Execute a PhD project within 3 years (including formal analysis and dissemination).
• Complete the necessary doctoral coursework as per NTNU’s guidelines.
• Attend project meetings and develop a collaboration network with project partners.
• Disseminate research findings through national/international academic conferences and open access scientific journals that meet the requirements for the PhD position.
Qualification requirements
• The PhD-position's main objective is to qualify for work in research positions. The qualification requirement is completion of a master’s degree or second degree (equivalent to 120 credits) in industrial economics, quantitative finance, industrial mathematics, or equivalent education within the thematic areas relevant to the project. Applicants should have a strong academic background with a grade of B or better in terms of NTNU’s grading scale. Applicants with no letter grades from previous studies must have an equally good academic foundation.
• The position requires excellent English oral and writing skills.
In addition, the following qualifications will contribute positively to the evaluation of the applicant:
• Background and/or experience relevant to the project topic
• Scandinavian language skills
• Documented experience with quantitative finance, decision making under uncertainty and/or risk analysis
• Documented experience with aquaculture economics
Recent graduates, or applicants who are in the final stage of their Master’s program, are encouraged to apply. Such an applicant may be offered the position under the condition that the diploma will show satisfactory final term results.
Les mer her: https://www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-stillinger/stilling/278731
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management
IØT has challenging and inspiring educational programmes and research projects in the cross-disciplinary field of technology management. Through its programmes of study, IØT educates candidates with a solid technological basis in methodology and theory on how to develop and manage technologically based organisations.
Participation in, and development of, research projects in close co-operation with Norwegian industry, the department is also developing models, tools and methods for how to manage Norwegian industry.
