Peter Hatlebakk

Dear colleagues,

The Corona pandemic still has a huge impact on our lives and research, and must be followed by further consistent and effective steps by the university. Many PhD candidates lack the facilities and resources to work effectively in a home office, and the short-term changes to our teaching and access to research facilities takes a lot of time and effort. Postdocs have been largely overlooked. The faculty board must take practical and unambiguous steps to ensure fair and equal treatment and better communication for the rest of the pandemic, so that we can have a chance to succeed with our research in spite of the crisis.

The overall research policy in Norway is changing, at the rump end of the Storting electoral period. Over the next years, a new national careers policy for younger researchers is in the offing, and a possible new government will pursue a new policy for University governance. The rights and possibilities of temporary employees must not be overlooked in these processes.

I will unequivocally work in favour of democratically elected boards at every level in academia, and against new layers of New Public Management incentive governance - our university needs long-term economic stability for the research milieus to flourish over time.

The Norwegian careers policy must be geared towards providing more stable, long-term work opportunities for PhDs and postdocs, and more relevant and varied research education, also in transferable skills. Postdocs must be long enough and provide the teaching and research opportunities necessary to qualify for tenure.

I am in favour of greater diversity at the university, and of divestment from fossile fuels and arms. (See Norwegian-language links to the public policy review pages above: And yes, I will raise the question of English-language information for employees at UiB.)

University democracy is something we do, not something we have. In order to secure our interests in the long-term, we must tend the small public sphere we have as UiB co-workers. I will work systematically with faculty board members, Group B representatives at the institute level and Doc UiB and Stip-HF – and not least the labour unions Forskerforbundet and NTL. I will take initiative for assembly meetings if big issues affecting particular milieus arise. I will also write short, to-the-point summaries from the board meetings, in English as well as in Norwegian. 

All best,
- Peter Hatlebakk

PS: do you have questions? Do please write me an e-mail or give me a call.