Development Research
Development research is one of two strategic areas of research at the University of Bergen for the period 2005-2010. In the course of the past 35 years the university has earned a distinguished reputation both in Norway and internationally for its excellent and result driven collaboration in research and education with universities and other research partners in developing countries.
The somewhat vague but often used term “development research” spans a broad spectre of research on local and global challenges affecting the lives of underprivileged people in less developed societies. Opportunities and constraints for development related to these challenges are at the core of development research. The interface between development research and more defined thematic research areas like poverty, good governance, human rights, welfare, health, diseases, environment etc. is therefore important.
The University of Bergen has provided substantial resources and earmarked funding for development research over the years both in terms of academic positions, administrative support services and funding of research projects and collaborations. The main external funding of development research projects comes from the Research Council of Norway, NORAD, the NUFU programme, EU, and various national and international organisations like the WHO, the World Bank, UNESCO etc.
Development research is quite often characterised by interdisciplinary collaborations and projects. In order to create meeting places for researchers from different disciplines and faculties and to have administrative support from a specialised and skilled staff, the University of Bergen established several faculty based centres for development related research in the 1990´s. Today most of these centres are dismantled and reorganised under the umbrella of thematic research clusters to be found at faculties, departments or specialised research centres.
Many of the projects and facilities for development research at the University of Bergen can be found at specialised interfaculty and/or interdisciplinary thematic research centres.
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Last updated 14.3.2011