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About the project
The main aim of the Eco-Emotions project is to discuss how humanity affectively deals with environmental change, as represented in and through literature, from the past and today, in the North and globally. The project is motivated by the relative lack of success of scientific, technological, and socio-political solutions to the current environmental crisis, which has made us aware of the pressing need for different insight, pertaining to the deeper emotive structures of humanity and the cognitive mechanisms that condition our relationship to the environment. The project aspires to harvest the yet unexploited potential of powerful, large-scale narratives from the past and today, which have the potential to activate new ways of thinking about and relating to our environment.
Who can apply
The MA-scholarship will be awarded to students with MA-projects at the intersection of emotion, environmental and literary studies. Nonetheless, the projects are to be developed independently and should respond to the state of the art within the respective field, within which the MA-student is pursuing their degree. The MA-student is to define their research questions, sources, and theoretical and methodological approaches independently, based on own interests and preferences and in conjunction to the field’s ongoing debates and trends.
The call is open to students affiliated to any of the Departments of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo that aims to submit their thesis within 2027. The scholarship may be awarded for both 30- and 60-points MA-theses.
How to apply
To apply, send an application to by email to the Eco-emotions research group, by November 1st. The application must include:
- a short motivation letter (1 page max)
- a project description accounting for the main research questions, sources, theories and methods (1 page max)
- a short CV (1 page max)
- transcripts from higher education (BA and MA-degree)
The application and all documents must be in English or a Scandinavian language.
Award criteria
The main evaluation criteria are:
- Clearly formulated and original research questions within the intersection emotion-, environmental- and literary studies, a reasonable delimitation of the sources, good contextualization within the current research within the field, feasibility and potential.
- A clear explanation of how the MA-project aligns with the research questions of the Eco-Emotions research project as a whole, or with one of the specific sub-projects.
- Motivation letter, providing other relevant information that would not otherwise fit within a project description.
Applications will be evaluated by a committee with representatives from the research project Eco-Emotions, which will assign award letters to the successful candidates.
Scholarship procedures
The scholarship is a research scholarship and is awarded based on a successful thesis proposal and does not depend on completing the master's thesis. An anchor-supervisor from the project will be assigned (depending on the field and capacity), in order to ensure sufficient follow-up and involvement of the students. The awardees will be invited and expected to attend and contribute to the project’s reading groups and seminars, by giving an oral presentation of their project in the course of the academic year.
The scholarships can cover living expenses and are considered taxable income for recipients. No documentations of costs are required to receive the scholarship. The scholarship will be paid in a single installment, with the awarded amount of 15,000 NOK.
Please note that the research scholarships is taxable. We anticipate that the recipient will have a tax card. In the scholarship holders annual tax return, the scholarship will be listed as taxable income. It is the recipient’s responsibility to have a valid tax card. If the recipient does not have any tax cards or exemption cards registered with the Norwegian Tax Authorities, 50% of the scholarship will be taxed.
Successful scholarship holders will be contacted to provide personal and banking information for the grant.
Payments are scheduled to take place ASAP after all information is collected.
If you have further questions about the scholarship, don’t hesitate to contact project leader. The research advisor at Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies may be contacted for questions regarding administrative matters.