Deadline: 20 Jan 2026
We have an open PhD position for research related to this topic: AI-Driven Business Models, Financial Performance, and Value Creation in the Maritime Industry, connected to the Norwegian Maritime AI Center and Fjordlab.
The maritime sector is entering a phase where AI adoption increasingly affects financial decision-making, cost structures, investment strategies, and long-term value creation. AI influences how companies allocate capital and resources, price services, manage risk, optimize asset portfolios, and develop new revenue models. Yet the financial impacts of AI remain poorly understood, and companies face substantial uncertainty when evaluating AI-related investments in improving their value chains.
NTNU now have an open position for a PhD project investigating how AI-driven improvements in information flows reshape financial flows, and how maritime firms can convert improved operations into financial value. Examples include capital efficiency gains from better asset utilisation, OPEX reductions through smart operations, logistics and predictive maintenance, cost-avoidance from improved reliability, dynamic pricing enabled by real-time data, and new revenue mechanisms such as performance-based contracts and servitization.
The project is suitable for candidates with strong interests in finance, economics, business model innovation, supply chain management, and quantitative or data-driven analysis, and who wish to contribute to improving financial decision-making and strategic investment choices in an increasingly digital maritime industry. The PhD candidate will analyse company data, financial statements, investment decisions, risk models, and commercial strategies across the maritime sector, identifying conditions under which AI contributes to measurable value creation.
The position will be associated with The Norwegian Maritime AI Center and Fjordlab at NTNU. This affiliation will position the candidate in a network with other researchers at PhD and senior level. It will also provide the candidate with access to relevant data sources. The successful candidate will be part of the interdisciplinary maritime operation research group at NTNU Ålesund.
Your immediate leader will be the Head of Department.
Duties of the position
• Complete the doctoral education until obtaining a doctorate
• Carry out research of good quality within the framework described above
• Academic publications and popular science dissemination
• Participate in the Maritime operations research group
• Participate in international activities such as conferences and/or research stays at foreign educational institutions
Be prepared for changes to your work duties after employment.
Required selection criteria
• You must have a relevant Master’s degree in a relevant social-science or quantitative field, such as Economics, Finance, Business Administration, Industrial Economics, Management Science, Operations Research, Supply Chain Management, or Applied Statistics or equivalent. Your course of study must correspond to a five-year Norwegian course, where 120 credits have been obtained at master’s level. Master students can apply, but the master’s degree must be obtained and documented before starting the position and no later than 01.04.2026
• You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and have an average grade from your Master’s degree study, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared to NTNU’s grading scale. If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic foundation. If you have a weaker grade background, you maybe considered if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education.
• Written and oral fluency in English. Applicants with MSc degrees from institutions outside Europe are expected to document language proficiency. In extraordinary circumstances, formal documentation of language skills can be relinquished. In such cases, the candidate’s language skills will be assessed in a personal interview
• You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty’s Doctoral Programme
PLEASE NOTE: For detailed information about what the application must contain, see paragraph “About the application”.
The appointment is to be made in accordance with NTNUs guidelines for recruitment positions and Regulations for the degrees philosophiae doctor (ph.d.) and philosophiae doctor (ph.d.) in artistic development work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)for general criteria for the position.
