The Natural Resources Institute of Finland (Luke) is looking for a Research Scientist, as a post-doc researcher in strategic management and foresight related to business in the natural resources sector for a 3-year period.

This postdoc position is part of the Postdoctoral Programme for Research Institutes in Finland. The programme is funded from the Finnish government's multi-annual research and development (R&D) funding plan. The programme recruits 85 new postdoctoral researchers to 12 Finnish government research institutes between 2025 and 2028. The aim of the Programme is to strengthen RDI competence in areas important to society and business. A postdoctoral researcher will conduct goal-oriented high-level research at the interface between the academic community, industry, and administration. The Programme supports postdoctoral researcher’s networking and mobility between sectors.

The selected person will also take part in Luke's Doctoral Programme, which coordinates, develops, and monitors the qualification of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers at the Natural Resources Institute Finland.

The main duties and key responsibilities of the Researcher Scientist, postdoc, relate to producing business economic information about market supply and demand, which affect the current and future prerequisites of the circular bioeconomy and the possibilities of sustainability transition. For this purpose, along with the external enablers and obstacles to change (e.g. laws and other regulations, industry-level solutions), it is essential to study how the internal characteristics of individual actors (e.g., companies, customers, authorities) and the groups they form (e.g., value networks, business ecosystems) affect the potential for sustainability transition. Such internal characteristics are, e.g., actors' resources and capabilities explaining their strategic potential to adapt in push the development of innovative product-service solutions. Such internal characteristics are e.g., actors' resources and capabilities explaining their innovativeness to develop new product-service solutions, as well as the prerequisites to foresight the strategic actions required by the changing business environment.

The research will be carried out mainly in collaboration with mainly in collaboration with the researchers in the Business Economics group (YRLI) belonging to the Bioeconomy and environment unit, but also with people working in Luke's other units and groups. In the externally funded projects, work essentially comprises also cooperation with other domestic and foreign research institutes, universities, companies and other Luke's stakeholders. The work also includes also tasks related to project planning, procurement of external funding and project management. The nature of the task requires strong self-initiativeness and a willingness to develop professionally as an independent researcher and as part of interdisciplinary working groups.

In this task, you can contribute to the search for biocircular economy solutions to solve domestic and international sustainability challenges as a producer of impartial research results. In this position, you will be able to qualify as a researcher and network extensively with various actors.