Call for applications for a fully financed PhD fellowship
The overall aim of the Thriving Communities Lab is to improve the health and wellbeing of children and youth (aged 12–25 years) in Faaborg-Midtfyn by implementing a data-driven systems approach.
The Thriving Communities Lab builds on Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality’s own ambition to strengthen the use of municipal data and to foster collaboration across sectors to address youth health and well-being challenges. This ambition reflects a political and organizational priority: moving from fragmented efforts towards coherent, data-informed learning and action. Moreover, at the municipal leadership level, there is a growing strategic interest in linking wellbeing and health more explicitly – recognizing that youth well-being cannot be meaningfully addressed without also considering physical health. Through the Thriving Communities Lab, the municipality is therefore also working to further mature the organization, including at the policy level, to embrace health as an integrated and legitimate part of the youth wellbeing agenda.
The ph.d. candidate will partake in evaluating the Thriving Communities Lab as a systems-based approach to improving youth wellbeing aged 12-25, with a focus on understanding how system-level change unfolds over time and through which mechanisms, processes, and contextual factors such change is generated, sustained, or constrained.
The ph.d. candidate will be responsible for:
a. An evaluation of development of municipality capacity during the project.
b. An overall evaluation of collective impact as a systemic approach in the project.
c. An an evaluation of the project inspired by realistic evaluation.
Public Health background is essential and a through knowledge on system approaches and capacity building is an requirement for potential candidates.
It is expected that the PhD candidate has considerable knowledge municipal capacity building, collective impact and realistic evaluation.
Please submit your application via this link. Application deadline is 25 March 2026 23:59 CET. Preferred starting date is 1 April or 1 May.
For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide.
Please contact Associate Professor Knud Ryom, knudryom@ph.au.dk for more information.
All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.
