Hjalti Nielsen

Short description

Hjalti has a PhD in social and economic geography from Lund University. In his doctoral research, he explored how knowledge-intensive firms in peripheral areas compensate for the absence of local agglomeration advantages and long distances to relevant client- and knowledge markets, and ultimately compete with similar firms in large and distant client markets.

Hjalti has broad work experience both within and outside academia. He has participated in international reserach projects and has worked as a researcher at both Lund University and the University of Iceland. He has designed, organised, coordinated and carried out research projects and fieldwork in different countries/regions. Being a geographer, his research focus has been very much on the interaction between a) what, why and how regional actors do things and b) the structures they are influenced by (and influence back to a certain extent).

Although Hjalti has and is interested in studying regional development from a broad perspective in all types of region, he is most interested in exploring regional development opportunities in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions, e.g. regions that have to some extent lost both people and economic foothold in recent decades.

Hjalti started to work for Østlandsforskning i January 2023 and sits at the Hamar office.