Evaluation of the Humanities in Norway Report from Panel 5 – Archaeology, History and Cultural Studies Evaluation Division for Science Evaluation of the Humanities in Norway Report from Panel 5 – Archaeology, History and Cultural Studies Evaluation Division for Science © The Research Council of Norway 2017 The Research Council of Norway Visiting address: Drammensveien 288 P.O.Box 564 NO-1327 Lysaker Telephone: +47 22 03 70 00 [email protected] www.rcn.no The report can be ordered and downloaded at www.forskningsradet.no/publikasjoner Graphic design cover: Melkeveien designkontor AS Photos: Shutterstock Oslo, juni 2017 ISBN 978-82-12-03610-9 (pdf) 2 Contents Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 5 1 On the evaluation ...................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Terms of Reference ............................................................................................................ 8 1.2 The evaluation panels ........................................................................................................ 9 1.3 Methods and Limitations .................................................................................................. 11 1.3.1 Organisation of the evaluation ................................................................................... 11 1.3.2 The data available to the panels ............................................................................... 12 1.3.3 Criteria used during the evaluations .......................................................................... 13 1.3.4 Limitations .................................................................................................................. 14 1.4 Those evaluated ............................................................................................................... 16 2 Assessment at the national level ............................................................................................ 18 2.1 General observations ....................................................................................................... 18 2.2 History ............................................................................................................................... 21 2.3 Archaeology ...................................................................................................................... 22 2.4 Cultural studies ................................................................................................................. 23 3 Assessment of institutions ...................................................................................................... 24 3.1 Nordland University (UiN) ................................................................................................. 24 3.2 Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Humanities (NTNUHF) ... 27 3.3 University of Bergen, Faculty of Humanities (UiBHF) ...................................................... 31 3.4 University of Oslo, Faculty of Humanities (UiOHF) .......................................................... 34 3.5 University of Stavanger, Faculty of Arts and Education (UiS) ......................................... 39 3.6 The Arctic University of Norway UiT, Faculty of Humanities Social Sciences and Education, (UiTHSL) ................................................................................................................... 43 3.7 University of Agder, Faculty of Humanities and Education (UiA)..................................... 47 3.8 Norwegian University of Science and Technology, University Museum (NTNUmuseum) 51 3.9 University of Bergen, University Museum (UiBmuseum) ................................................. 55 3.10 University of Oslo, Museum of Cultural History (UiOmuseum/KHM) ........................... 58 3.11 University of Stavanger, Museum of Archaeology (UiSmuseum) ................................ 60 3.12 The Arctic University of Norway UiT, Tromsø University Museum (UiTmuseum) ....... 63 3.13 BI Norwegian Business School (BI) .............................................................................. 67 3.14 Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) ....................................................................... 69 3.15 Telemark University College (HiT) ................................................................................ 72 3 3.16 Volda University College (HVO) ................................................................................... 75 3.17 Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS) ............................................................. 78 3.18 Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) ......................................... 81 3.19 UNI Research (UNI) ...................................................................................................... 84 4 Assessment of research groups ............................................................................................. 87 4.1 UiN-History ....................................................................................................................... 87 4.2 NTNUHF-FATNAT (The fate of nations) .......................................................................... 88 4.3 UiBHF-Health.................................................................................................................... 89 4.4 UiBHF-Homo sapiens ....................................................................................................... 90 4.5 UiBHF-Medieval ............................................................................................................... 92 4.6 UiBHF-Middle Eastern and African Studies ..................................................................... 93 4.7 UiBHF-Transnational History ............................................................................................ 94 4.8 UiOHF-Archaeology (ARK) .............................................................................................. 95 4.9 UiOHF-Children and Conceptions of Childhood in History .............................................. 96 4.10 UiOHF-History of Knowledge ........................................................................................ 97 4.11 UiOHF-SKiN – Systems of Knowledge in the Nordic Middle Ages .............................. 98 4.12 UiTHSL-CNN (Creating the New North) ....................................................................... 99 4.13 UiTHSL-NordFront ...................................................................................................... 100 4.14 UiTHSL- Sub-Arctic Stone Age Research Group (SARG) ......................................... 102 4.15 UiA-Religion and World-views in Social Context ........................................................ 103 4.16 UiB Museum-Universitetsmuseet ............................................................................... 104 4.17 UiO Museum/KHM - Centre for Viking-Age Studies (ViS) .......................................... 106 4.18 HVO-Cultural Encounters ........................................................................................... 107 4.19 NIKU-Building-Context-Transformation ...................................................................... 108 4.20 NIKU-City-SIS ............................................................................................................. 109 4.21 NIKU-Cultural Heritage Politics ................................................................................... 110 4.22 NIKU-Memories of War (Krigsminner) ........................................................................ 111 5 Reference list ........................................................................................................................ 113 6 List of abbreviations used in the reports ............................................................................... 114 7 List of panel members ........................................................................................................... 117 4 Summary The panel was struck by the considerable diversity of the institutional landscape in which research is carried out. It ranges from large universities, with large numbers of researchers and substantial time for research, to small teaching colleges with fractions of that time At the majority of institutions, researchers enjoyed good or excellent support for their research in terms of the time earmarked for research, financial support for research and research leave. PhD students are well funded. Indeed, such was the institutional level of support that there was little incentive for some researchers to seek external funding for individual projects. At the same time, the panel was struck by the considerable variety in the levels of support. At some smaller institutions, members of staff had a mere 10% of their time earmarked for research. At some of the new universities, lecturers with a research orientation co-existed with teachers without a PhD or without research time The development of research projects and applications for external funding should be encouraged further in future, but this also means that institutions need to provide adequate support for such initiatives (and to the scholars leading them). Such support should extend to preparing publications in English or other foreign languages at an academic level. Some English-language publications the panel