The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) is a specialized university and a leading
international architecture and design school that provides education within architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism and design. AHOs fields of knowledge focus on design in all scales; objects, buildings, urban areas and landscaping. AHO is organized into four institutes, and has approx. 700 students and 135 employees.

The institute of Design at AHO is the oldest education of it kind in Norway and is today a leading international site for education and research in a variety of design domains.

The Institute of Design has a broad approach to design that emphasises the relevance and importance of design within contemporary society. We aim to educate designers with a solid knowledge of their specific professional field while emphasising a broadly integrated, cross-disciplinary approach to design processes using design thinking and design making.

The Institute of Design reflects the rapidly emerging fields of design that respond to societal challenges, new technologies and increased complexity. It promotes design that actively shapes our society, industry, organizations and daily life. Moving beyond its traditional role, design is established as a tool with which to address a wide range of issues from strategy to social change. While historically the Institute focused on Industrial Design, today its scope also includes Interaction Design, Service Design and Systems Oriented Design. The institute has a staff of 38, including PhD fellows and visiting tutors.

PhD position – Service Design for Future Health Services

The Institute of Design

Service design is a rapidly growing domain in design and is increasingly present in commercial and public sectors in Norway. Up to four design research PhD positions are now available to further develop the service design research field within the area of healthcare. The positions are centered in practice oriented design research using designing as a means to research. At the core is a need to develop new perspectives on the development and implementation of service design for healthcare.

The positions are part of a newly funded centre, The Centre for Connected Care (C3) which is an 8 year initiative funded by the Norwegian Research Council, Commercial organizations and by research partners. C3 aims to accelerate adoption and diffusion of patient-centric innovations that change patient pathways and delivery systems, empower the patients and increase growth in the health care industry.

We invite applications, together with suggested project descriptions, for projects within one or more of the two following areas:

1. Supporting and developing New Service Development (NSD) processes in healthcare
   AHO wishes to develop NSD processes that will support patient-centric innovation in services through Co-Design of new and improved solution systems, that support the Co-Creation of treatment between healthcare specialists, the patient and other actors, and that encourage Co-Production in which the patient takes an active role in producing the service in a network value-creation perspective. The research will develop and validate support tools, and these will then be converted into an innovation toolbox of shared resources for diffusion throughout the participating organizations. Particular focus could be given to both low-threshold innovation tools (eg. how a ward can innovate themselves without great external funding) and support for larger innovation projects.
2. Development of a patient-centric innovation lab AHO wishes to develop a shared resource, an Innovation Lab‘, that builds upon the Mindlab model from Denmark, the Aalto DesignFactory and Kent County Councils Social Innovation Lab (SILK). This could further develop existing living lab collaborations as a means of supporting innovation activities, or it could be more as a strategic design lab for innovation between new constellations of public and private actors. The Lab will be developed and used in close collaboration with commercial partners, particularly new start-up partners brought in through Oslo Medtech ( a cluster of 150 medical companies).

We are interested in doctoral design researchers who are motivated to apply, design and critique service design views in the design of services for the public sector. The doctoral researchers will work closely with researchers at AHO, and also researchers in healthcare, business and ICT. The position is part of the wider design and research strategy of the Institute for Design at AHO that encompasses the Centre for Service Innovation (CSI), DOT (Design for public service) and the Experiential Services initiative.

Requirements

Applicants must hold a Master’s Degree or equivalent in a field of relevance (eg. Service Design, Systems Oriented Design, Interaction Design, Design Management, Visual Communication, Product Design). Practical experience in service design is required for this position.

We invite applications within one or more of the above research areas, and the application should include:

• A letter of application describing why the applicant feels qualified for this position. In particular the applicant should identify the questions from the above list that they would like to explore and how they would approach this as part of a PhD project (two A4 pages maximum).
• A written project proposal (up to five pages) detailing the theme, types of problem and the research method(s) you propose to use in your project.
• A portfolio of your work/design experience
• A CV (contact details, summary of education, positions and academic work, academic publications, design work, competencies in software etc.) especially highlighting aspects relevant to this proposal.
• Certified copies of educational certificates, transcript of records, diplomas and letters of recommendation.
• List of publications and academic work that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee, if not included in the CV.
• Examples of work written (where relevant) by the applicant. Three works maximum.
• 3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail address and telephone number)

Foreign applicants must attach an explanation of their university’s grading system. Please remember that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language.

Evaluation criteria

Applications will be evaluated based upon a combination of factors:

• previous experience in the field of service design
• previous experience in designing for healthcare
• the quality of the submitted project proposal and supporting documentation
• the relevance of the submitted proposal to the goals of the C3 centre
• the innovation potential offered by the submitted project proposal for the C3 partners

Applicants fluent in Norwegian or another Scandinavian language will be preferred, although this is not a formal application requirement.

Position & Salary

The length of the fellowship will be three or four years fulltime, dependent on whether the candidate is found qualified to undertake teaching duties as part of the PhD position. The position requires full time residency for the full 3- or 4- year period. Research stay at a relevant international academic institution is a possibility.

The PhD fellowships will start in September 2015. The PhD candidate is required to attend the AHO Research School in his or her first year. This is a mandatory introduction programme for all PhD candidates admitted to the PhD programme at AHO. The Research School runs for two semesters and has a total scope of 45 ECTS. Research School attendance is compulsory.

PhD Research Fellow (SKO 1017), pay grade: 50 (NOK 429.700,-). From the salary there will be a mandatory deduction of the 2% as contribution to the State Pension Fund. Normal employment conditions for state employees apply for the position. AHO has its own company health service.

More information about PhD fellowships at AHO can be found at www.aho.no/en/RD/The-PhD-program/