Research at The Faculty of Social Sciences
Researchers at the Faculty of Social Sciences publish their work in several academic areas. The research activities of the faculty should be free and financially and politically independent. Researchers seek to come into contact with both society at large and businesses; disseminating research results is a natural part of the faculty's work.
Organization
The research and the programme of doctoral education at the faculty are organized in the form of disciplinary and interdisciplinary departments and research groups. As well as good cooperation with other faculties at the University of Bergen, researchers enjoy extensive international and national networks.
The Faculty of Social Science has six research fields.
Within each area, there are a number of interdepartmental projects. Cooperation between departments and other academic milieux at the University of Bergen is often organized through the research company Universitetsforskning Bergen (Unifob) (UniResearch Bergen).
Important research fields at Bergen University
For many years the University of Bergen (UiB) has focused on development research and marine research as the main strategic research areas between faculties. Academics at the Faculty of Social Sciences have made important contributions to development research at UiB and the position UiB enjoys as an international university which strongly emphasizes cooperation with countries in the South.
Recently, several more areas of interfaculty cooperation have emerged at the university, of which two are particularly relevant to our faculty; Democracy and rule of law and Region and regionalization.
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Development research
Development research is a broad and complex research field which includes anthropological regional studies, processes of democratization and institutional development in new democracies, the environment and social change, processes of globalization, global poverty, educational and knowledge systems and much else besides.
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International Migration and Ethnic Relations, IMER/UiB
IMER/UiB is a constituent research unit at Uni Global for multi-disciplinary collaboration between researchers at the University of Bergen.
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Information, communication and culture
This is a key area of research at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies. When the two departments merged in 2004, one aim was to develop an innovative academic milieu by combining perspectives and insights from the humanities, the social sciences and technology.
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Power, democracy and governance
Studying power, democracy and governance has long traditions at the two departments of political science. Several researchers at UiB contributed analyses to the latest Norwegian expert report which also included voluntary organizations.
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Welfare, health and social policy
Welfare, health and social policy is an extensive and important research field at the faculty. The programme “Helseøkonomi i Bergen (HEB)” (Health Economics in Bergen) and the social-security research group at the Department of Economics constitute important and long-term research activities scrutinizing the welfare state and welfare arrangements.
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Work, education and business
Research into work, education and business has long traditions within several academic milieux, especially within geography, economics, sociology and administration and organization theory. Thematically this research area is rather extensive and includes geographical research examining urban and business development, innovation, industrial economics and economic organization, labour relations, the relation between work and education, qualification systems, professional studies, the education system and educational reforms, knowledge and governing knowledge, to name but some areas.