INN University has applied for accreditation once before, but did not meet all requirements. The institution met 10 out of 13 criteria. The three areas that were assessed as not meeting the current requirements were linked to parts of the regulations relating to the number of academic staff, stable research training and certain areas that underpin high international quality.
"Since the previous decision, we have worked systematically to improve, not least in the areas where we were too weak last time. We can point to a significant development in recent years," says INN University Rector Peer Jacob Svenkerud.
In the application, INN University provides an account of activity and quality within the its academic operation linked to research and education. The institutions's academic environment, study programmes and international work are also described in detail.
More employees and increased expertise
The number of man-years in teaching, research and dissemination positions has increased from 662 man-years in 2019 to 797 man-years in 2021.
The proportion of employees with associate qualifications (doctorate or equivalent) has increased. In 2014, the proportion was 55 percent, but this year has increased to 65 percent.
"The development is the result of conscious recruitment and an internal effort to support employees towards promotion. Our ambition is to increase the share of associate competence to 70 percent in three years' time," says Svenkerud.
From 2018 to 2022, the number of full-time professors has increased from 76.9 to 161.9 man-years. During that period, the number of associate professor man-years increased from 161.9 to 244 man-years.
A quality measure showing strong improvement is the so-called ratio, which describes the number of students per academic man-year. In 2019, INN University had 21.6 students per academic man-year. Last year the figure was 18.5, while this year it has been reduced to 16.6.
Research
"In the application, we explain how our focus has been on research. Along with education, research is the institution's primary activity," says Anna Linnea Ottosen, project manager for the work on the university accreditation application.
Research and knowledge production are essential in and of themselves, and crucial for INN University to be able to offer good research-based education.
"The programmes we offer must maintain high quality, be competitive and attract students. A staff of researchers who both do research themselves and are members of national and international networks is a guarantee that the students encounter up-to-date knowledge in the educational programmes we offer," says Ottosen.
INN University currently has 68 research groups, 215 active research projects and participates in a further 300 externally funded projects. The institution meets the requirements for stable research training in that the programmes for Teaching and Teacher Education (PROFF) and Child and Youth Competence Development have both awarded at least five doctorates per year over a three-year period. The same applies to the PhD programme in Applied Ecology and Biotechnology.
Two new doctoral programmes have been approved in 2022: PhD in health and welfare (HELVEL), which was established this spring, and PhD in Artistic Research (FILMART) which will be established this autumn.
"INN University has now awarded 135 doctorates as part of its own doctoral programmes. This means that the institution has academic weight and has gained a lot of experience in being responsible for and running PhD programmes," says the project leader.
Increasing application numbers
The number of students applying to INN University has been steadily increasing. The number of applicants for INN University as their first choice increased by 73.6 percent from 2014 to last year, from 11,247 to 19,525 applicants.
"This increase is higher than the national increase in higher education for the same period. It shows that we are an attractive educational institution," says Anna Linnea Ottosen.
INN University has more students who complete bachelor's studies in the normalized time than the national average, but is slightly lower for master's studies because some students are registered as full-time students even though they study part-time. In doctoral programmes as well, INN university has more candidates who complete their programme within the normalized time than the national average.
High international quality
The institution partakes in extensive international cooperation, and in recent years has strengthened its work on this front by building long-term collaborative relationships, among other things. INN University participates in an increasing number of Nordic and European programmes, networks and collaborations in research and education, and is also a member of the European University Association (EUA).
The applications INN university has participated in within Horizon 2020 have had a success rate of 14.6 percent, which is about the same as the success rate for all Norwegian projects (15.1 percent). In 2018, the total allocation from the EU per academic man-year was NOK 2,500, while increasing to NOK 14,200 last year. Going forward, the institution aims to increase participation in the EU's framework programme for research and innovation, Horizon Europe.
The researchers at INN University publish together with researchers from large parts of the world. The author share for international co-publishing has risen from 39 percent in 2017 to 46 percent last year.
The number of institutions with which INN University co-published has increased from 233 institutions in 51 countries in 2018 to 441 institutions in 72 countries last year. Among the collaborating institutions were world-leading institutions such as Princeton and Oxford.
"Overall, the application describes a considerable development in international quality as well. The international cooperation must still be developed further," says the project manager for the university accreditation project, Anna Linnea Ottosen.
Important process
"It has been a long process to prepare a university accreditation application. The process itself has been important in that it has sharpened us and contributed to targeted work and strengthened quality," says Rector Peer Jacob Svenkerud.
INN University has applied for university accreditation for several reasons.
First, INN University believes that a university status will reflect which category of institutions INN University actually belongs to: a group of new and modern universities where INN University belongs together with, among others, OsloMet and the University of Southeast Norway (USN). These are institutions with large elements of professional education, marked academic strengths and subject areas and educational programmes of great importance for their regions.
A university status will also make it easier to attract additional academic top expertise in connection with the academic programmes and subject areas at INN University.
The status will make it easier to communicate in international forums what kind of institution INN University is, strengthen the starting point for raising international research funds and lead to increased international cooperation.
"In this way, university status will make us better able to meet the region's and society's needs for competence and research-based knowledge of high quality. It is important for us, but also for Inland Norway as a region," concludes Svenkerud.
Contact
- peer.svenkerud@inn.no
- Phone
- +47 62 43 04 06
- anna.ottosen@inn.no
- Phone
- +47 62 43 00 67
The article was translated from Norwegian by Noorit Larsen.