New rules open the way for rise in number of universities

Proposed new regulations which alter the criteria needed for institutions to be classified as universities will make it possible for Norway to increase its number of universities from 10 to 20 after 2025 when the regulations are expected to kick in.

The new regulations for institutional accreditation, which are expected to come into force on 1 January 2025, were sent out for public comment on 11 June with a deadline of 30 September this year.

In a press release at the start of the public process, which included a 67-page document setting out the proposed changes, the Ministry of Research and Higher Education said the goal of the new rules was “less bureaucracy” and requirements that were better suited to the current landscape of higher education.

“We need regulations that create higher education institutions which use their resources to address needs in the society rather than participate in an unnecessary bureaucratic competition over the use of the name university.

“We have no use for building up as many doctorates as possible just to meet the formal requirements,” Minister of Research and Higher Education Oddmund Hoel said.

Building a knowledge nation

“Lack of competence might over the next years be a serious threat to welfare and value creation all over the country. Against this perspective we have no choice: we have to educate a larger part of our own people.

“And if we shall reach all, we need universities and university colleges all over the country. This is important to build Norway as a knowledge nation,” Hoel said.

The new regulations come in the wake of the findings of an eight-member expert group led by Vice-Rector for Education at the University of South-Eastern Norway Ingvild Marheim Larsen and set up by former minister for research and higher education Ola Borten Moe in May 2022.

The group had a broad mandate to examine whether or not the regulations related to becoming a university in Norway were in need of revision.

In 2002 Norway had four universities and six scientific university colleges, 26 regional university colleges and two art colleges. In addition, there were 17 private colleges with accreditation.

By 2022 there were 10 universities, nine scientific colleges (three of which are private), five regional university colleges and 12 private colleges with accreditation.

Behind such growth is the fact that from 2004, regional colleges were able to apply for either scientific university college or university status. In parallel, extensive mergers in the sector have taken place, .

The government’s new regulations will make it easier for the nine scientific colleges to become universities. According to a Khrono report, seven of these institutions have indicated that becoming a university is very important to them.

“In addition, two state colleges and one private college are on the way to becoming universities. In this way, Norway can more than double the number of universities from today's 10 to more than 20 after 2025,” the Khrono report states.

Doctoral programmes

When the expert committee delivered its report in January 2023, it proposed significant changes in the regulations for becoming an accredited university.

While it still pegged accreditation as a university to doctoral programmes it proposed to reduce the requirement of four doctoral programmes to one which covers substantial sections of the institution’s academic activities. This means that institutions with broad academic fields must have more than one doctoral degree.

In addition, it was proposed that parts of doctorate education could be offered in collaboration with other institutions in the form of joint degrees.

The expert committee proposed that higher education institutions applying for university accreditation should have admitted at least 60 doctorate students over the past five years and graduated on average at least 15 candidates per year over a three-year period.

Higher education institutions with a more specialised academic profile were required to have 15 students over a five-year period, graduating at least five of these on average per year.

Most of the institutions commenting on the expert group report sent out in February 2023 have been receptive to the changes.

Hoel indicated that the main parts of the proposal have already secured a majority in the parliament with the white paper on professional higher education being accepted by parliament on 4 June 2024.

Quality concerns

However, University World News did hear some concerns from Norwegian academics about the changes.

Professor Emeritus Ivar Bleiklie from the University of Bergen, who is an expert on higher education governance and has studied Norwegian higher education and research policies from a comparative perspective, told University World News he was concerned about the impact of the new regulations on quality.

“A core item in the new quality regulations proposed by the government, is a change in the requirements regarding PhD education as a condition for university accreditation.

“The change implies a reduction of the number of PhD programmes that an institution must run by itself from four to one, while keeping the requirement that PhD-education must remain ‘a substantial part of academic activities’ at the institution,” he said.

“This means that a strict formal rule will be replaced by a more flexible and vague regulation. The upside is increased flexibility which may reduce bureaucratic formalism and offer an incentive for academic institutions to intensify collaboration in the area of PhD education.

“The downside is the vagueness relating to what ‘a substantial part of academic activities’ at an institution means. This offers opportunities to lower the bar for university accreditation, particularly in a situation where resources are scarce.

“In the context of the cuts in research and higher education budgets by the current government, and a political climate where the government clearly favours immediate national educational needs rather than long term research and internationalisation, I am concerned that the new regulations are preparing the ground for lower academic standards and reduced quality of academic education and research,” he stated.

Reduced diversity

Bjørn Stensaker, vice-rector for education at the University of Oslo, said the most significant advantage of the new regulations is the “possibility for developing a higher education sector where there is a clearer division of labour between the new universities”.

“Reducing the number of PhD degrees required for being labelled as a university opens up [the way] for more specialised universities that are also able to pool their resources into creating solid and more sustainable academic profiles.

“However, the key challenge for the higher education system is if the universities establish many PhDs in the same area, and where the number of potential students are limited. This could potentially lead to reduced diversity in Norwegian higher education,” he said.

Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, former rector of the University of Oslo and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and now acting secretary-general of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities in Brussels, said the new proposal did not constitute an “adequate response” to the major challenges faced in the area of research and higher education.

“I am more convinced than ever that we must attend to the fact that Europe is increasingly lagging behind the leading science nations of the world when it comes to research and innovation.

“In the field of advanced technologies, not least, we need to step up our efforts, in higher education as well as in R&D. Several studies suggest that European countries are caught in a ‘middle technology trap’ and Norway is no exception,” he said.

“To find our way out of this trap we need to uphold and boost the quality of our research and education, and we need new and advanced skills and expertise. The response to this need is competition, concentration, and specialisation.

“In this context the present proposal does not provide the right recipe. We must concentrate our resources on what already delivers in terms of quality and innovativeness and not spread our resources thinly,” he explained.

Professor Emeritus in political science at the University of Oslo, Bernt Hagtvet, has also expressed concerns about declining quality at Norwegian universities, notably after the Bologna reform, which in Norway is labelled ‘the quality reform’.

Orwellian newspeak

In the financial newspaper DN on 4 July, he wrote: “Minister Hoel now opening the floodgates so that all and everyone can label themselves ‘universities’ is for me Orwellian newspeak in the same line as the abracadabra-concept ‘Quality reform’. What is the purpose of such emptying of the concepts?”

Mats Benner, professor in science policy studies at Lund University’s School of Economics and Management, and past member of the Swedish government’s Research Advisory Board (2009-10, 2015-16), told University World News the regulations were an “interesting development” which was “seemingly a return to the old (pre-Hernes) ideal of many higher education institutions spread throughout the country”.

He added: “While this may certainly make sense in some respects, it will probably not benefit the international impact of Norwegian research. It may very well counteract it, with more institutions competing over stagnant resources. In sum, a re-regionalisation of Norwegian higher education and research – Back to the future, one may wonder?”