Evaluation of individual research units - Norges forskningsråd

Evaluation of biology, medicine and health research in Norway (2011)
Executive summary with general
conclusions
The Panel met with representatives from twelve university departments, one University
Centre (UNIS), and seven research institutes. The twelve departments that were assessed
by the Panel were drawn from seven universities: UMB, NTNU, and the Universities of
Adger, Bergen, Nordland, Oslo and Tromsø. The research institutes that took part in this
evaluation were the Institute for Marine Research, the Norwegian Forest & Landscape
Institute, Bioforsk, NINA, NIVA, the Norwegian Polar Institute, and SINTEF Fisheries &
Aquaculture.
It appeared that many recommendations resulting from the evaluation undertaken in 2000
have been acted upon. We see this report as part of an ongoing process of evaluation and
recommendations.
There are, however, a number of issues that appeared to be almost universal or were
raised independently by a number of institutions. We discuss these trends below, in the
section titled General recommendations, and in most cases do not revisit them in our
reports and recommendations for individual units, departments, or institutes.
Consideration of these common themes forms the substance of our general conclusions.
The issues we highlight include (i) the status of, and attitude towards, gender equality in
Norwegian biology, (ii) the inadequate provision of small grants or seedcorn funding, (iii)
the consequences of offering four-year contracts, (iv) the cost of biological research in
Norway and its impact on competitiveness, (v) the provisional of technical support, and
(vi) the importance of considering a diverse array of indicators of research success.
The Panel also considered the research quality of the various biological disciplines and
research topics that were within its remit, with the aim of identifying strengths and noting
areas that require attention. These conclusions are presented in the section below, titled
General description of the field.
General description of the field
Several research groups have international strengths in the areas of ecology, biodiversity
and conservation biology as well as in the synthesis of ecology and evolution. These
combined strengths are important for coping with future challenges in environmental
management including the prevention of habitat degradation, controlled harvesting,
population conservation, and climate change.
Marine resources and aquaculture are of economic importance to Norway and a number
of research groups are undertaking high quality research in fields relating to marine
ecology, including plankton biology, arctic marine systems, and marine genomics and
biodiversity.
For most other disciplines, the number of relevant research groups submitted to this Panel
for evalutation were too small for general conclusions to be drawn. Bearing that caution
in mind, we note that a pair of research units that study microbiology and microbial
ecology were rated highly.
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