The Programme for Cultural Research is organised and financed by the Research Council of  Norway. In the course of the five-year period from 1998 to 2002, the Programme aims to promote interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences research into cultural understanding, cultural refraction and cultural policy in modern Norway. By financing major basic research projects the Programme aims to generate new knowledge that should help to improve our insight into, and understanding of, developments in cultural values, concepts, forms of expression, interests and conflicts in Norwegian society. Our diverse contemporary cultural situation will be studied in both historical and international contexts. Traditional forms of cultural understanding, both in research circles and in society in general, will be examined. The Programme will give priority to research based on non-essentialist methodologies. Dynamic and relationally oriented concepts of culture will be the focus of studies of how cultural processes are institutionalised, reproduced and changed. The Programme also aims to contribute to the development of a more active cultural dialogue in Norwegian society. Such a dialogue will be both a prerequisite for and a result of the research projects. 

Cultural understanding
Norwegian society is increasingly multicultural. This makes it timely to concentrate on research that defines the problems of, and provides a basis for systematic reflection on, the established traditions, values and modes of understanding that have marked (and continue to mark) Norwegian culture and Norwegian cultural research. With this as its point of departure, the Programme has invited researchers to carry out critical studies of the concept of culture, its historical, philosophical and social assumptions, and its usages and effects. An important problem in this context is how research is to understand - and study - the complex relationship between cultural understanding and the shaping of society. 

Cultural refractions
Norwegian culture is often regarded as egalitarian. This implies that, in comparison with many other societies, there is less of a tradition of focusing on cultural differences and conflicts. Women’s liberation, changes in class relations and ways of living together, stronger articulation of national minority interests, the increased presence of immigrant groups from non-European countries, the growing differentiation of lifestyles and consumption patterns - are all examples of conditions that shake up our conceptions of equality. Cultural differences, borders and conflicts are becoming more obvious. The Programme for Cultural Research will give precedence to research projects that draw attention to both stability and change in the relationships between Norwegian tradition and multiculturality, between minority and majority cultures, and between the forms of expression and identity structures of different social groups. 

Cultural policy
Concepts of culture and cultural refractions are also related to symbolic, social and economic interests. In other words, they are  political objects, in both the formal and informal senses of the concept. In Norway the production of artistic and cultural forms of expression is woven into a mixed economy that is characterized by strong government involvement. This has both economic and organisational consequences. The Programme for Cultural Research aims to contribute to shed light on cultural politics - especially their public aspect - through systematic and critical research. Both its assumptions, means and effects will be studied. Furthermore, the rhetoric of legitimation, conceptions of quality, professional interests, processes of bureaucratisation, the influence of the media, and similar subjects will be included as relevant research topics within the Programme. 
 

Cultural dialogue
The Programme will emphasise the integration of  research and dissemination of results. The development of contact and of active communication among research groups, between researchers and selected user groups, and between the Programme and the general public, will be stressed. Provision of information about the work of the Programme for Cultural Research will not be limited to research results in the traditional sense. We also wish to establish a dialogue based on the topics, problems and perspectives of cultural research, in which impulses will be transmitted in both directions between research and society in general. This process of mediation will devote resources to developing and refining both new and old methods of dissemination. 
 

Management and coordination
The Programme for Cultural Research is led by a programme board appointed by the Research Council of  Norway. The activities of the Programme are managed and coordinated by the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Bergen, which initiates research and dissemination projects in cooperation with the programme board, research groups and users of research results. The secretariat will support the establishment of networks that will span across projects, academic disciplines and geographic areas. 

The Programme’s address is: 
Centre for Cultural Research
Haakon Sheteligsplass 11 
N-5007 Bergen 
Norway 
Tel.:  + 47 55 58 98 10 
Fax: + 47 55 58 98 09 
e-mail: kulturstudier@kul.uib.no