Evaluation of individual research units - Norges forskningsråd

University of Oslo
Department of Biology
Evaluation of biology, medicine and health research in Norway (2011)
Description of institution
The Department of Biology was formed from a number of research groups that existed
before 2007, at which time the department was reorganised into three research programs
and one interdisciplinary centre of excellence, the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary
Synthesis (CEES). Oslo University as a whole was also reorganised in 2005 into its
current structure; each department has a head who serves for four years and, with the
assistance of the head of administration, works with the department and university board
to plan for the future. The research programs each have a chair and a vice chair who
report to the head of department. The research programs are deliberately limited in scope
and teaching undergraduates is not their primary mission.
The composition of personnel in the department has changed rapidly over the last several
years. The number of PhD students increased from nine at the beginning of 2005 to 23 at
the end of 2009. The total number of PhD students enrolled at the department in 2009,
including both internally- and externally-funded fellowships, was 60. At that time there
were 32 permanent scientific staff members. Women are well represented among PhD
students and post-doctoral researchers but the department becomes more male-biased at
senior levels.
General evaluation & recommendations
The department is making excellent progress towards its goals, and the Panel were
impressed by the degree of substantive change in the department over the last several
years. The rate and quality of publications increased following the reorganisation, and we
noted that the productivity of many of the members of the department is extremely high.
A concern we had, which seems to be shared to some extent by the members of the
department as expressed in the self-assessment and the panel meeting, was to prevent
domination of the department by the CEES, which currently has the largest number of
researchers by far in the department. The CEES secures much of the research funding,
and has high visibility. The work of this centre is excellent, as detailed below, but for the
overall health and viability of the department, it is essential to make strategic decisions
about growth in the other research groups as well. In particular, the Marine Sciences
group is rather small. We recommend developing an explicit succession plan for the
group in terms of its leadership and continued funding.
We recommend appointing one or two people to help members of the department assess
international opportunities for basic research, particularly EU funding, so that individual
researchers can take advantage of as many calls for proposals as possible. The creation of
small grants or discretionary funds for exploratory research is also a potential solution.
Follow up of previous evaluation
The department responded to the previous evaluation by undertaking the reorganisation
described above, with an emphasis on research groups excelling in particular areas rather
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