Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Multilingualism, Neurocognition and Language Learning

Stig Brøndbo
15th February 2026
Languages
English

• Norsk Bokmål
• English

English

Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Multilingualism, Neurocognition and Language Learning
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The position

A postdoctoral research fellow position in the neurocognition of multilingualism and language learning is available in the Department of Language and Culture at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The position is affiliated with the research project Neurocognitive Outcomes of Bilingualism and Effects on Language Learning (NOBELL ). NOBELL is financed by the Research Council of Norway January 2026-December 2029.

Anticipated starting date: August 2026 (the exact start is possible to be negotiated).

The position is a fixed term position for a duration of 3 years. It is a prerequisite that the applicant can carry out the project over the full course of the employment period. No person may hold more than one fixed term position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.

As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, you will have the opportunity to advance your scientific career and further qualify for academic positions. If you do not already have the educational competence that meets the requirements for an Associate Professor position in Norway, UiT will arrange such competence during the employment period.

The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time after receiving the offer.

If you receive a personal overseas research grant from NFR it is possible to apply NFR for an extension of the fellowship period corresponding to the length of the stay abroad (minimum three months, maximum 12 months).

The Department of Language and Culture

The Department of Language and Culture has a very active and diverse research profile. The Department’s core activities are research, teaching, and dissemination within linguistics, literature, art history, and media and documentation studies. The Department hosts about 160 employees the majority of which are situated at the Tromsø campus, but some are at the Alta campus. There are about 500 students at the department.  

The Department houses one of the world’s foremost research communities in linguistics represented by Center for Language, Brain and Learning (C-LaBL). I addition, there are research groups within acquisition (AcqVA-Nor), cognitive linguistics (CLEAR), Sami language technology (Giellatekno and Divvun), and sociolinguistics, multilingualism, and revitalization (MultiNor). 

The Department’s research communities within literature, art history, and media and documentation studies are nationally highly competitive, and are organised into research groups such as Arctic Voices, Engaging Conflicts in a Digital Era (ENCODE), Health, Art and Society (HAS), Interdisciplinary Phenomenology (IP), Pax Slavia in FLux: European Contexts (PSIF) and Worlding Northern Art (WONA). 

ISK offers teaching in the following fields: linguistics, literature, art history, media and documentation studies, English, Kven, Finnish, Norwegian, Russian, Sami, Spanish, and German, as one-year programmes, as well as full Bachelor and Master programmes (including three international programmes). The department is also involved in teacher education level 8-13 and provides teaching in North Sami, Spanish, English, Nordic, Russian and German. In addition, the department is responsible for all the Sami language teaching (mother tongue and second language) at UiT. It also offers PhD programmes in linguistics, cultural/literary studies, art history, as well as media and documentation studies.    

The project/position's field of research

The advertised postdoctoral fellow position will conduct work within the NOBELL project. The postdoctoral fellow will contribute to aspects of project design and take a primary role in data collection and analysis, and contribute to dissemination of results.

The advertised position will work within the NOBELL project, which has close links to the Center for Language Brain and Learning (C-LaBL), specifically the Brain Domain . The project has further connections to collaborators at the University of Lancaster (Jason Rothman) and University of Groningen (Greg Poarch).

The following is a brief description of the NOBELL project:

The principal aim of the Neurocognitive Outcomes of Bilingualism and Effects on Language Learning (NOBELL) project is to understand how an individual’s bilingual experience-induced neurocognitive adaptations may serve as priors for the trajectory of the individual’s subsequent language learning. This primary aim comprises two interrelated objectives. The first is to identify what aspects of bilingual experience (e.g., frequency/intensity of language engagement, duration of bilingual experience, etc.) affect adaptations in specific cognitive processes and neural substrates that are also associated with varying trajectories in novel language learning (e.g., attentional control, working memory, and neural connectivity) and how and to what extent these effects manifest. The second objective is to assess the degree to which individual differences in these bilingualism-influenced neural and cognitive processes do indeed positively influence the learning rate and/or outcomes of learning of a novel, additional language.

To address its objectives, NOBELL will run a large-scale longitudinal study which aims to 1) identify the potential mechanistic links between extent of bilingual experience and specific neurocognitive adaptations, and 2) the extent to which these relationships facilitate novel language learning. The project will recruit Norwegian-English bilingual adults, assessing language background and exposure/use patterns as well as neural and cognitive outcomes at baseline (via rs-EEG, as well as tasks measuring working memory and attentional control and their neural correlates). Participants then undergo a training phase where they are taught Spanish via an app-based platform. Finally, participants' proficiency in Spanish are assessed at the end of the training phase. The results from NOBELL will aim to address three related questions, including: 1) the extent to which different aspects of bilingual experience correlate to adaptations in functional connectivity and cognitive processes (attentional control and working memory) that are known to contribute to language learning, 2) if these cognitive and neural predispositions predict individual rate of subsequent language learning after intervention, and 3) if there is a direct mechanistic link by which bilingual experience affects neural and cognitive predispositions related to language learning and this relationship, in turn, predicts rate of language learning globally and especially for particular properties of language.

Contact

For further information about the position, please contact Professor Vincent DeLuca:

• email: vincent.f.deluca@uit.no  

or Head of Department Cathrine Theodorsen:

• email: cathrine.theodorsen@uit.no  
• phone: +47 77 64 55 89

via Unsplash
Qualifications

Required qualifications: 

• A PhD in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, language sciences or another relevant field. If you're in the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply for the position, provided that you submit parts of your dissertation along with your application. This enables the evaluation committee to assess the quality and likelihood of completion by the desired employment date. You must include a statement from your supervisor or institution stating the expected completion date for your PhD degree. Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.
• Experience with experimental design, data collection and analysis.
• Excellent command of spoken- and written English. Nordic applicants can document their capabilities by attaching their high school diploma.

Desired qualifications: 

• Experience with imaging methods (particularly EEG and/or (f)MRI)
• Experience with advanced statistical modelling
• Prior research experience working with bi-/multilingual populations and/or multilingual language acquisition is also favorable
• Competence in Spanish

In the assessment the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works. Emphasis shall also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity.

During the assessment emphasis will be put on the candidate’s motivation, potential for research, and personal suitability for the position. We are looking for candidates who:

• Have good collaboration skills
• Have good communication and interaction with colleagues and students
• Wants to contribute to a good working environment

At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work and not on where the work is published, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA ).

Inclusion and diversity  

UiT The Arctic University i Norway is working actively to promote equality, gender balance and diversity among employees and students, and to create an inclusive and safe working environment. We believe that inclusion and diversity is a strength, and we want employees with different competencies, professional experience, life experience and perspectives.  

If you have a disability, a gap in your CV or immigrant background, we encourage you to tick the box for this in your application. If there are qualified applicants, we invite least one in each group for an interview. If you get the job, we will adapt the working conditions if you need it. Apart from selecting the right candidates, we will only use the information for anonymous statistics. 

We offer

• Involvement in an interesting research project 
• Good career opportunities 
• A good academic environment with dedicated colleagues  
• Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement  
• Pension scheme through the state pension fund 

Norwegian health policy aims to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their personal finances and where they live, has access to good health and care services of equal standard. As an employee you will become member of the National Insurance Scheme which also include health care services .

More practical information for working and living in Norway can be found here: https://uit.no/staffmobility  

Application

Please note that the application will only be assessed based on the information submitted by the application deadline via Jobbnorge. It is therefore important that you include all necessary documents demonstrating your qualifications for the position.

Your application must include:

• Application letter
• Contextualizing statement/proposal (2-3 pages), detailing how the candidate fits into the work done in NOBELL as detailed specifically above.
• CV (containing a complete overview of education, supervised professional training and professional work, as well as a list of publications if applicable).
• Diplomas and transcripts (all degrees)
• Documentation of English proficiency
• Contact information to 3-4 references
• Documentation of educational competence , if available
• Description of your academic production, stating which works you consider most important - this will be an annotated list of your publications, with a brief description of each study. Please highlight or note which of these you wish to be taken into consideration.
• From the above list, three samples of either published work or other professional writings

If you're in the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply for the position, provided that you submit parts of your dissertation along with your application. This enables the evaluation committee to assess the quality and likelihood of completion by the desired employment date. You must include a statement from your supervisor or institution stating the expected completion date for your PhD degree. Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.

All documentation to be considered must be in a Scandinavian language or English. If English proficiency is not documented in the application, it must be documented before starting in the position. 

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications based on the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position. A copy of the assessment report will be sent to all applicants. 

The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview should among other things, aim to clarify the applicant’s motivation and personal suitability for the position. A trial lecture may also be held.

General information

The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants . 

The remuneration for Postdoctoral research fellow is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1352. A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted. You will become a member of the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, which gives you many benefits in addition to a lifelong pension: You may be entitled to financial support if you become ill or disabled, your family may be entitled to financial support when you die, you become insured against occupational injury or occupational disease, and you can get good terms on a mortgage. Read more about your employee benefits at: spk.no .

The successful candidate must be willing to get involved in the ongoing development of their department and the university as a whole.

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure. 

In case of discrepancies between the Norwegian and the English version of this description, the Norwegian version takes precedence.

Eallju - Developing the High North 

UiT The Arctic University of Norway is a multi-campus comprehensive university at the international forefront. Our vision is to be a driving force for developing the High North. The Northern Sami notion eallju, which means eagerness to work, sets the tone for this motive power at UiT. Along with students, staff and the wider community, we aim to utilise our location in Northern Norway and Sápmi, our broad and diverse research and study portfolio and interdisciplinary advantage to shape the future.

Our social mission is to provide research-based education of high quality, perform artistic development and carry out research of the highest international quality standards in the entire range from basic to applied. We will convey knowledge about disciplines and contribute to innovation. Our social mission unites UiT across various studies, research fields and large geographical distances. This demands good cooperation with trade and industry and civil society as well as with international partners. We will strengthen knowledge-based and sustainable development at a regional, national and international level.

Academic freedom and scientific and ethical principles form the basis for all UiT’s activities. Participation, co-determination, transparency and good processes will provide the decision-making basis we need to make wise and far-sighted priorities. Our students and staff will have the opportunity to develop their abilities and potential. Founded on academic integrity, we will be courageous, committed and generous in close contact with disciplines, people and contemporary developments.

We will demonstrate adaptability and seek good and purposeful utilisation of resources, so we are ready to meet the expectations and opportunities of the future. We will strengthen the quality and impact of our disciplines and core tasks through the following three strategic priority areas.

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Deadline

15th February 2026

Employer

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Municipality

Tromsø - Romsa

Scope

Fulltime (1 positions) Fulltime (%)

Duration

Fixed Term

Place of service
Hansine Hansens veg 18, 9019 Tromsø

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