Outstanding Evaluation for Porous Media Research Group
In the Research Council of Norway’s recent evaluation of national research, the Porous Media Group is recognized for its research excellence, and as an internationally leading research group in Applied and Computational Mathematics.
Main content
Once per decade, the Research Council of Norway (RCN) evaluates Norwegian academic communities to create a solid and up-to-date knowledge base on Norwegian research and higher education in an international perspective. In 2023 and 2024 the RCN evaluated mathematics, ICT and technology. Among those who were evaluated, The Porous Media Research Group (PMG) at the Department of Mathematics, once again received an outstanding evaluation. The international panel committee highlights:
PMG is a highly productive group delivering internationally leading research output. It managed to maintain its high-level performance from 2012, and even increased it by diversifying its research portfolio and attracting first-rate national and international funding.
The evaluation panel furthermore recognizes how the group has worked actively and strategically to foster research excellence:
The group's strategic focus on securing funding, excellence in research and publication, active societal contributions, and user involvement have earned high scores across various dimensions, reflecting their strong organizational structure and research quality.
In the previous evaluation in 2012, the group received the highest score for research quality. In this latest evaluation, PMG has retained its top score and further strengthened its position. Inga Berre, professor and PMG group leader, highlights collaboration as a key aspect to their evaluation results.
- I am incredibly proud of this result. To achieve this, it is not enough for each group member to excel individually—we must also work together. The hallmark of PMG is our strong collaboration, allowing all of us to achieve far more as part of a group than we could alone. In our field, which includes building advanced open-source software tools, collaboration, internally as well as in the international research community, is fundamental to being at the frontier, says Berre.
Porøse medier-gruppen har gjort betydelige forskningsbidrag innen simulering av strømning og transport i oppsprukket porøst materiale. Figuren viser transport av sporstoff i et oppsprukket porøst medium.
Norwegian Center of Excellence
Collaboration has also been key in the group’s success in attracting external funding. The group has in recent years received several grants though highly competitive funding schemes, including a VISTA center grant, an ERC Consolidator grant and several FRIPRO grants and other grants from the RCN. This funding that supports research within mathematical modeling and numerical methods for geothermal energy, CO2 storage and subsurface energy storage. Being fundamental research within mathematical methods, the impact of this research is transferable across many applications in the ongoing energy transition.
Building on their excellence, the PMG are now aiming for a Norwegian Center of Excellence, a scheme that gives Norway's leading researchers the opportunity to organise themselves into centres to achieve ambitious scientific goals. Led by Berre and Professor Jan M. Nordbotten, the recent evaluation serves as strong motivator for continued efforts.
- Our strong commitment to our ambitious new research plan makes this recognition even more motivating. It reaffirms that we are on the right track and well-positioned to set ambitious goals, says Berre.
Nordbotten agrees and adds that they have done much since the years that has been evaluated.
- This evaluation reinforces the importance of our efforts to continuously adapt how we work to succeed in an evolving research landscape and to address societal challenges. The evaluation covered results from 2012 to 2022, and in the three years since, we have already taken significant steps in new research directions,” says Nordbotten.
Furthermore, Nordbotten highlights the group’s broad and substantial research contributions in developing the mathematical foundations for modeling multi-scale and multi-physics subsurface processes.
- With the increasing and multi-functional use of the subsurface, there is a pressing need for fundamentally new mathematical and numerical modeling. We are ready to take the lead on this, but it will require a substantial effort and increased resources, says Nordbotten.