Sustainability - Marine plastic pollution sweet spot
Combining skills to identify the «Sweet Spot» to solve marine plastic pollution in Norway
A project in the Interdisciplinary Sustainable Initiatives at NTNU
Call for applications: 5 PhD positions
Application deadline has expired.
About the project
Estimates suggests that 8 million tons of plastic wind up in the oceans annually, constituting a dire threat to marine and aquatic eco-systems, and followingly to human prosperity and development. There are thus an urgent need for solutions to prevent fruther marine plastic pollution, both nationally and globally.
In this interdisciplinary research project, researchers at NTNU will collaborate and integrate transdisciplinary knowledge to drive the transformation towards plastic-free Norwegian waters. Using a systems engineering approach, the project aims to find the preventive, curative, and innovative strategies to plastic waste within the overarching framework of Circular Economic and UN’s decade of ocean science for sustainable development.
The transformation will be driven through a multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary approach, where the science of machine learning, artificial intelligence, laboratory analysis, behavioral change, supply chain management and business model research will be integrated with the active involvement of local and regional actors. The Department of International Business (IIF) at NTNU Ålesund, will host the project, yet involved researchers will be from four different faculties (ØK, IV, IE and SU) and seven departments (IIF, IHB, IIR, IØT, PSY, IDI and IGE) and four main project goals are identified:
(1) Generating scientific evidence on characterization, quantification, occurrence, and threatening potential of macro and microplastic polymers across Norwegian waters. (2) Developing policy-oriented strategies for preventing, minimizing the leakages of plastics across the system life cycle of products. (3) Drive inclusive innovation towards sustainable and circular business models within the region, to ensure sustainable management of plastic resources. (4) Application of behavioral and geographical knowledge to coin interventions for enabling transformation in the production and consumption of plastics in Norway.
PhD Position in:
Automatic data acquisition, detection and classification and data mapping
Department of ICT and Natural Sciences
The PhD position aims to develop an autonomous navigation system to enable an autonomous surface vehicle (USV) to systematically cover or map a particular area of interest taking into consideration marine traffic regulations, power, and environmental constraints. In addition, develop a machine learning based geotagged image acquisition system for detection, classification, and registration of marine plastics in marine environments.
Application deadline has expired.
PhD Position in:
Environmental and Analytical Chemistry for analysing marine plastic waste
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management
The PhD position aims to uncover the extent of micro and macro plastic items from marine litter. Using laboratory methods, the PhD candidate will identify the most threatening littered items along the Norwegian coasts in terms of their occurrence and potential to break down into microplastic pollutants within the aquatic environment.
Application deadline has expired.
PhD Position in:
Uncertainty management in operations and stakeholder networks to handle marine litter
Department of Ocean Operations and Civil Engineering
This PhD aims to address risks and opportunities arising in new stakeholder constellations and in the restructuring of the operating environment of firms to solve the marine litter problem. The research will build empirically grounded knowledge that captures how theories from operations risk management, decisions under uncertainty, and novel methodologies and data gathering strategies, such as organizational network analysis, can aid organizations to address new sources of uncertainties.
Application deadline has expired.
PhD Position in:
Circular business models for SMEs for marine plastic management
Department of International Business
The PhD position aims to uncover how marine plastic waste and discarded fishing gear can result in new opportunities and value creation. It aims to assess the opportunities that digitalization represents for SMEs in the plastic value chain (f.i. blockchain technology) and explore the possible changes and impacts that the EPR (extended producer responsibility) schemes will have for SMEs.
Application deadline has expired.
PhD Position in:
Social psychological and geographical analysis of marine litter
Department of Psychology
This PhD position shall identify the key parameters for behaviour change needed to develop and evaluate interventions supporting plastic free Norwegian waters; this will be done through applying methods from psychology and geography such as citizen science, interviews, focus groups, surveys and GIS mapping.
Application deadline has expired.