Hedmark University of Applied Science, Faculty of Business Administration
Units included in the No. of PhD graduated at the institution per year
Male/Female 0/0 0/0 0/0
R&D expenditures and sources of funding (1000 NOK) Total per year 0 0 0 No. of positions announced / No. of qualified applicants per year Management, Music Business – Production, Crisis Management, Service Management and Marketing
Management in Health and Care Services, Security Management
Source: The Research Council of Norway, Self-assessment report for the institution, 16/12960
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5.1 Economic-Adm. research at the institutional level
5.1.1 Organisation, leadership and strategy
On 1 January, 2017 Hedmark University of Applied Sciences (HUAS) and Lillehammer University College (LUC) merged to become Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN). However, the current assessment concerns the Faculty of Business Administration (hereafter FBA) at HUAS.
FBA is governed by a dean and two vice-deans, one for education and one for research. The faculty has two departments, but no information is provided about their governance structure. However, in the short term, FBA’s organisation and activities can be affected by the merger with LUC. Representatives of INN reported in interviews that there is a new faculty called Inland School of Business and Social Sciences.
The goal of the merger is for the university of applied sciences to actively engage in enhancing local and regional competence, and contribute to a more knowledge-based professional and community life. Another goal of the merger is to achieve university status, where one of the requirements is the development of four PhD programmes.
Another of FBA’s goals is to increase the research funding level: ‘To earn money on research’ as it is stated. An interesting strategy for increasing research funding is presented, where both goals and incentives are in alignment.
5.1.2 Institutional follow-up of previous evaluations
Not relevant.
5.1.3 Resources and infrastructure
The necessary infrastructure is in place with library and IT systems and support. The size of the library is impressive and it offers various courses in the use of research tools. The institution also supports open access publication. This should further improve following the merger with LUC.
5.1.4 Research environment
There is limited information about the research environment as such. There is some international cooperation, which has recently increased. Some cross-faculty cooperation is also mentioned in selected topic areas. However, cross-faculty cooperation is constrained by the relatively limited scientific breadth of the faculties.
There is little national cooperation with other researchers. External funding is promoted, but how FBA ensures its research quality is unclear.
There is no PhD programme, and at least four research areas are mentioned, which may be too many for such a small university, because the number of researchers per area will be very low.
5.1.5 Research personnel
HUAS has an active committee for diversity and equality (led by the rector) that advises HUAS on its equality and gender policy and follows up on its implementation.
It has signed the European Charter & Code for Researchers, but it has yet to be implemented.
Incentives schemes are actively used to promote research improvements and to secure the qualifications of the staff.
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PhD students and researchers are encouraged to spend time at research institutions abroad to further their projects, professional networks and professional competence, but there is no explicit sabbatical policy.
Its recruitment policy is not described. Several positions will open up in 2017; but how they are to be filled is not described.
When relevant, gender perspectives are included in the research projects.
5.1.6 Research production and scientific quality
The institution has launched several initiatives to increase production and quality. They promote international cooperation, allocate more hours to the most productive researchers and participate to an increasing extent in externally funded projects.
The results of this have yet to be fully materialised. One concern could be that it will be difficult to secure quality by maintaining the necessary focus on a few research areas, because of having to cover more areas due to teaching and the possibility of succeeding in external funding.
The productivity level for HUAS is average for applied science institutions and has increased in recent years. There is a relatively high proportion of publications in book chapters and, on average, the Norwegian language is used more than English. This confirms the impression of the need to focus on and develop a few areas of scientific quality.
Assessment of scientific quality: 2 - fair
5.1.7 Interplay between research and education
The time allocation between teaching and research (and administration) follows the international standard for full and associated professors, while the time allocated to assistant researchers for research is quite low. This is untenable in an international context. Normally it is the other way around, because young researchers need relatively more time to develop their careers and to qualify for tenure. This time allocation is often found at university colleges however. The low administrative burden should translate to more research time for junior staff than is currently the case.
There are close links between master’s education programmes and researchers. When doing their master’s and bachelor’s theses, students are invited to select a theme that is based on the research areas of the research group and researchers.
5.1.8 Societal relevance and impact
The research has some links to the national thematic priorities. The links to regional organisations and firms provides a good basis for the social relevance and impact of the research.
However, there is no explicit strategy for dissemination and knowledge exchange. Several activities are listed, but they are traditional, ad hoc and bottom-up.
5.1.9 Overall assessment
As described, the institution has many interesting ideas about research, quality and impact. Many of these ideas have not yet materialised and the new merged institution has a fair bit of work to do to implement a research strategy based on quality and societal relevance.
Some of the submitted publications indicate evidence of international collaborations.
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5.1.10 Feedback
Overall, the research needs to be focused to secure quality and to demonstrate social relevance and impact. A strategy also needs to be implemented for externally funded projects, including what kind of external funding is targeted, to ensure a closer relationship between research areas and priorities.
Finally, the work load of junior staff needs to be rebalanced between teaching and research.
51 No. of PhD graduated at the institution per year
Male/Female 1/- -/- 1/-
R&D expenditures and sources of funding (1000 NOK) Total per year 1 - 1 No. of positions announced / No. of qualified applicants per year
Source: The Research Council of Norway, Self-assessment report for the institution, 16/12960