“UiO will lead the way in environmental work, both nationally and internationally, and act as a role model for other institutions.”
The quote is from UiO's Strategy 2030. The climate and environmental strategy is based on the overall strategy, and has the following main objectives:
UiO will:
- Education: offer all students research-based education on climate, the environment and sustainability, and, when possible, integrated into their respective disciplines.
- Research: lower barriers to, and strengthen, interdisciplinary research and collaboration on climate, environment, and sustainability.
- Dissemination and dialogue: expand local and international cross-sectoral cooperation on climate, environment, and sustainability.
- Climate and green campus: reduce the university’s climate footprint and develop ‘green campuses.
- Organisation: incorporate all work related to climate, environment, and sustainability in the organisational culture and structure.
See details in the Climate and Environmental Strategy
Research
“UiO will further develop disciplinary depth and interdisciplinary cooperation, and lead the way in the development towards a sustainable society.” –UiO’s Strategy 2030
UiO is characterised by its strong basic research milieus. Many of these also make important contributions to addressing major societal challenges, including within the fields of climate and environment. At the same time, climate and environmental challenges are extremely complex and require more multi- and interdisciplinary cooperation. It is therefore crucial that UiO improves the ways in which we facilitate for the exchange of knowledge and collaboration across academic communities and faculties, and with external national and international stakeholders. UiO will build on existing climate and environment-related research milieus while paving the way for more cross-disciplinary cooperation. This involves assessing new interdisciplinary structures that can support, for example, interdisciplinary initiatives, temporary interdisciplinary projects, centres, and other existing major initiatives.
Much of UiO’s basic research is undertaken using the university?s own funds, whilst externally funded activities are becoming increasingly important, both as a source of research funding and as an arena for cooperation with other national and international institutions and sectors. For research on climate, environment, and sustainable transitions, there is a great potential in funding opportunities through the European Research Council (ERC) and, to a greater extent than today, by way of the thematic areas of the Research Council of Norway, Horizon Europe, and other international research funds. UiO conducts world-leading research on renewable energy, the environment, and climate science within different disciplines. We will contribute towards putting research on the human and social aspects of these topics on the national and international research agenda to a greater degree than at present.
In practice, UiO will facilitate disciplinary and interdisciplinary career paths. A particular concern among younger researchers is professional standards relating to interdisciplinary research (ciens.no, Norwegian). UiO should consider the timeframes for multi- and interdisciplinary research fellowships with a view to ensuring that more young researchers have the opportunity to build expertise across traditional barriers between the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences, without weakening academic quality or work opportunities. Likewise, UiO will endeavour to make it easier to employ people in interdisciplinary, cross-faculty positions.
Key research funders in Norway and abroad are introducing guidelines on how the projects they allocate funding to shall be undertaken in the most climate and environmentally friendly way possible. At UiO, managers and directors are responsible for ensuring that any potential negative climate or environmental consequences of our research are assessed where this is relevant, and there must always be transparency as to who is funding the research.
Overall goal:
R0: UiO shall make top-quality scientific contributions to the knowledge base relating to climate and environmental challenges in a broad sense of the words, both from a disciplinary and an increasingly interdisciplinary point of view.
Sub-goals
UiO will:
R1: Experiment with new models of how to bring researchers together across disciplinary and faculty boundaries in order to further develop top-quality international research on climate, environment, and sustainability.
R2: Build on high-quality disciplinary research in the work to further developing interdisciplinary initiatives and linking research more closely to education within the field of climate and environment.
R3: Strengthen the opportunities available for enabling PhD students to conduct multi- and interdisciplinary research based on strong disciplinary knowledge.
R4: Reduce existing cultural and structural barriers to the advertising of interdisciplinary and cross-faculty positions.
R5: Assess the possible negative climate and environmental consequences of research where relevant.
Education
“UiO will educate students who place their subjects in a broader social perspective and lead the way in the green shift” –UiO’s Strategy 2030
Global climate and environmental challenges are complex, and UiO will offer students teaching and learning methods that encourage critical thinking, ethical reflection, creativity, and the ability to solve problems and engage in societal changes. Many of the academic disciplines at UiO can, either by themselves or in collaborative multi- and interdisciplinary research and education, contribute with knowledge relevant to how we solve major societal challenges. UiO will engage a wider range of disciplines in the study of climate and environmental issues. We will facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and ensure that students and candidates with strong disciplinary expertise also have the opportunity to communicate across subjects and to orient themselves at the intersection between knowledge, expertise, and political decisions. Students have called for such action on numerous occasions, among others through student organisations and the Student Parliament.
In order to achieve this, we must reduce barriers that make it challenging to establish new interdepartmental and cross-faculty study programmes, and better enable students to make use of such opportunities. It can be challenging for researchers to teach students with different academic backgrounds and varying degrees of prior knowledge, an