Position as PhD Research Fellow in Secure and Sustainable Blockchain Technologies available at the Networks and Distributed systems (ND) group, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, in collaboration with the Digital Security (SEC) research group. Since the position is related to security, applications must be able to receive a security clearance.

The research fellowship period is for three years. An additional year of compulsory teaching-related duties may be offered at the time of appointment, for candidates who can and want to contribute to teaching and supervision at the department.  In this case, the compulsory duties will be spread out over the full contract period, averaging 25% per year over four years

Application deadline is September 18th, 2022. Starting date no later than January 1st, 2023. No one can be appointed for more than one PhD Research Fellowship period at the University of Oslo.

The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.

Salary is between NOK 491200 - 534400 per annum depending on qualifications and seniority as PhD Research Fellow (position code 1017)

It is planned that this PhD research project will focus on public blockchain systems which can be used within a wide variety of use cases, such as cryptocurrencies, energy trading, supply chains, healthcare, among many others. These platforms provide many benefits, such as high availability, transparency, and trust between anonymous entities. However, in order to achieve a high level of security (in terms of resilience against attacks and data integrity), many current blockchain platforms, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, rely on non-sustainable mechanisms: one of the most stringent examples is Proof-of-Work (PoW), which achieves a high level of security, but at the cost of a huge energy consumption. Additionally, many of the current mechanisms for securing the chain cause a bottleneck in terms of performance and scalability.

This project aims at improving sustainability of blockchain systems and enhancing their performance and scalability without losing the security guarantees. Among other possibilities, it will focus on investigating novel building blocks that can be used to build open, public, and highly secure global platforms with low carbon footprint.

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science. Candidates without a Master’s degree have until Fall 2022 to complete the final exam.
• Foreign completed degree (M.Sc.-level) corresponding to a minimum of four years in the Norwegian educational system

The norm is as follows:

• the average grade point for courses included in the Bachelor’s degree must be C or better in the Norwegian educational system
• the average grade point for courses included in the Master’s degree must be B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• the Master’s thesis must have the grade B or better in the Norwegian educational system
• fluent oral and written communication skills in English
• for english requirements for applicants from outside of EU/EEA countries and exemptions from the requirements see here

The application must include:

• Cover letter - statement of motivation and research interests
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work - scientific publications)
• Copies of the original Bachelor and Master’s degree diploma, transcripts of records
• Documentation of English proficiency
• List of publications and academic work that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee
• Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)

The application may additionally include letters of recommendation from the Master degree advisors and due to other professional engagements, such as summer internships and projects.

The application with attachments must be delivered in our electronic recruiting system. Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University's grading system. Please note that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language.

Shortlisted candidates will be called for an online interview.

The University of Oslo aims to achieve a balanced gender composition in the workforce and to recruit people with ethnic minority backgrounds.

For further information please contact Roman Vitenberg () or Thiago Garrett ().