UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and
- Dept. of Language and Culture (ISK) - Dept. of Philosophy (IFF)
- Dept. of Education (ILP) -Centre for Peace Studies (CPS)
Training, recruitment and academic positions 2014 2015 2016 No. of PhD graduated at the institution per year
Male/Female -/3 0/0 0/0
R&D expenditures and sources of funding (1000 NOK) Total per year 3 0 0 No. of positions announced / No. of qualified applicants per year
- No. of positions reported are identical for Dept. of Social sciences, eg. political science).
Source: The Research Council of Norway, Self-assessment report for the institution, 16/12960
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18.1 Sociology at the institutional level
UiT The Arctic University of Norway was founded in 1968 as a comprehensive university for Northern Norway. In the past 10 years, the university has undergone several mergers with university colleges in the region, and it is now the third largest university in Norway. The Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education (HSL) was founded in 2009 following a reorganisation of the university, in which the departments were also reorganised. The Department of Social Sciences (including Sociology, Political Science, Social Anthropology and Community Planning) has listed 12 researchers for the evaluation of Sociology.
Organisation, leadership and strategy
UiT is organised like a fairly conventional university, with a rector at its head, then deans at the faculties, and heads of departments (and boards at both faculty and departmental level). On top of that, or perhaps rather at the bottom, are research groups. It should be noted that the faculty is big, with 500 employees, 60 of them within the social sciences.
The strategic goals are to publish more, improve quality, and become more international – in short, to become better. In addition, UIT wants to be more engaged in the debate on global challenges and increase ‘research-driven innovation’. Strategies for this are mentioned, such as a new research group organisation and increased support for those who are about to apply for external funding, but whether this is sufficient or effective is difficult to say.
External funding is limited at the faculty level, at 5% of the total expenditure (and virtually no support from international sources), so the aim of increasing external funding is appropriate. However, according to the interview in October, at least two new Sociology projects have recently received funding. Moreover, two associate professors with methodological expertise (quantitative and qualitative) have recently been hired.
Institutional follow-up of previous evaluations
UiT Sociology was evaluated in the previous evaluation of Sociology in 2010, and problems were identified, such as research being of too low quality and quantity, and being fragmented, as well as lacking an international profile. In the present self-assessment, this criticism is noted and it is further stated that a plan was formulated to address the problems. The plan included several suggestions aimed at increasing internationalisation, productivity and collaboration, and an application to the RCN for funding was sent in 2011. There is no information, however, on whether this application was successful or not. Several measures relating to the criticism have been taken during the years since the previous evaluation, however.
The SWOT analysis clearly shows that the institution is aware of its current and enduring problems, which is a good thing.
Resources and infrastructure
The mergers are a challenge for UiT as the organisation is dispersed over many locations, in the north of Norway. Modern communication technology solves many of these potential problems, however.
The faculty has a good research infrastructure and is building databases, e.g. of economic, social and political data for all Norwegian municipalities, enabling analyses of geodata, as well as the National Population Register for Norway, where the goal is to embrace the period from 1800 onwards.
Infrastructure includes a ‘supercomputer’ with Open Access for researchers as well as students. The building of databases at HSL is promising, but it is not clear how far that work has progressed.
UiT has a relatively generous system for sabbatical leave based on publications, which looks good.
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Research environment
For Sociology, there was not much information in the self-assessment on seminar series, summer schools, guest lectures etc. There used to be a Sociology seminar, but it has apparently been discontinued. Efforts are being made to get seminars going again, but, since people are spread over so many different locations, this is difficult. Instead, the research groups might function as thematic seminar groups. UiT funds 17 research groups, e.g. through seed money. The teaching load is quite heavy but the head of department can grant research time for work on applications and publications.
There is a system for sabbaticals, aimed at longer visits, up to a year, abroad. Sabbaticals are granted based on publication records, and for younger researchers also based on a work plan for the visit.
There are also some agreements with institutions abroad, e.g. Stanford, for research visits.
Research personnel
Hiring is done through Euroaxess, and best practice appears to be followed.
The Charter has been adopted, and UiT has been awarded ‘HR excellence in research’ status.
There is no discernible career path, except the standard Norwegian academic career path for higher education institutions. The gender representation is satisfactory.
Research production and scientific quality
Research production in Sociology is varied, but on average is of ‘not-so-great’ quality. UiT is aware of this and claims to have implemented some strategies to change this for the better, such as a reorganisation of the research groups. It is hard to evaluate these policies, however. The quite negative evaluation from 2010 appears to be valid in 2017 as well. Perhaps the time for recovery has been too short.
The research topics are extremely varied. There is one group doing theory and conceptual analysis (very general, but also quite esoteric), one doing more anthropological research in Africa and among the Sami population, while some studies are more mainstream qualitative studies of health.
The research is mostly published in Norwegian. The international academic community is the suggested audience for only 20% of the total publications, with Norwegian academics being the target audience for another 50%. This is a relatively low level of ambition, even though it may be realistic.
The productivity is relatively, but not exceptionally low, but the average ranking of the outlets is very low. The impact in relation to other research in the OECD, the Nordic countries, and Norway, is also very low.
Interdisciplinary research is uncommon, despite the very heterogeneous research environment. There is a good connection with anthropological research, however.
Assessment of scientific quality: 2 - fair
Interplay between research and education
Master’s students are sometimes involved in research and can be offered a research grant for participation in specific projects on which they write their master’s theses.
Together with NTNU, UiT has an ongoing project to enhance teaching on the following levels: lecturer, associate professor, senior lecturer and professor. It is not clear though whether the project also aims to build a bridge between research and teaching.
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Societal relevance and impact
The department states that it has strategies for dissemination etc. While this is not so easy to evaluate, the fact that HSL has given several talks to stakeholders and written columns in the daily press speaks in favour of the strategies.
Some parts of HSL appears to be quite close to the Long-term plan for research and higher education, but on the whole HSL addresses different topics.
The topics for research are in several cases highly relevant to the Northern region, and as such could potentially benefit the region.
The societal relevance of the research is described in the case study on gender equality, where one researcher has been influential at policy level inter alia by being appointed as a member of an expert panel examining Norway’s gender equality policy.
Overall assessment
The situation for UiT Sociology does not look too promising. It is fragmented, appears to lack strong research leadership, has little external funding, little international visibility, and produces research that has great room for improvement. This largely repeats the comments in the evaluation of 2010. The promising part is that, in its self-assessment, the department appears to be aware of the problems, describes them clearly, and has started to move in the right direction.
HSL has a better record when it comes to societal impact, where one researcher has been influential in relation to policy on gender issues, and where several research projects have addressed real problems, particularly in Northern Norway. However, looking at the department as a whole, the research is not particularly geared towards societal impact.
There is evidence of dissemination to local stakeholders.
Feedback
It is likely that UiT must first of all adopt a long-term plan for improving research at the department.
As an integral part of it, this plan ought to focus on recruitment and a strategy for research areas. It seems necessary to somehow achieve a critical mass of capable researchers in a relatively focused area. This is difficult, as the research areas are presently extremely different. So, it may take time, which means that it is all the more important to have a long-term strategy to hold on to. Given the relatively small size of the department, it is probably better to have a departmental rather than a discipline-specific strategy, so the initiative and implementation should instead come from the faculty, in cooperation with the department. It should be noted that, even though each discipline at HSL has around ten staff, the department, with 60 people, is sufficiently big to contain a critical mass of researchers.
But strong academic leadership is not easy without resources, so the strategy needs to be followed up by a bigger budget, most realistically through external funding. This will require strong research groups, however, which, in turn, is dependent on good scholars and promising PhD candidates. From an external point of view, it is hardly possible to assess how difficult the strategic hiring of good people is at UiT, but a way to counterbalance potential recruitment problems is to offer generous guest lectureships and invite international collaborators who can get involved in the research and in writing grant proposals. At present, the faculty has five adjunct professorships, which appears to be in this spirit (although it is not clear if any of them are sociologists). In addition, the two associate professors,
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one with expertise in qualitative methods and one with expertise in quantitative methods, should contribute positively to this.
One way to keep the day-to-day activity up is to organise seminars and conferences, and generally see to it that the academic staff produce research and regularly attend national and international conferences and meetings.
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