Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

The Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL) is one of the largest higher education institutions in Norway, with around 1,800 employees and 16,000 students offering Bachelor, Master and PhD studies primarily within education, engineering, health and social sciences. The HVL aims to work closely with workplaces, Norway’s regional areas and its students. In this context, we engage in continuous cooperation with important players in the region, on the national and international level for example, the development of school and kindergarten-based expertise. The project will be hosted at the Faculty of Education, Arts and Sports. This Faculty is one of the largest teachers training institutions in the country with around 6,200 students and a staff of 550, offering Bachelor’s and Master's in kindergarten teacher training, primary and secondary school teacher training for classes 1-7 and 5-10, practical pedagogical education and the PhD program “Studies of Bildung and pedagogical practices”. The Faculty has extensive continuing and further education and training programs. The HVL`s and faculty’s dedicated role in community development makes it an important partner for local and national authorities, as well as for schools, kindergartens, and culture institutions. HVL and the faculty have had success in EU-funds, NRC funds, Ministry of Education and Research funds, UTFORSK, Erasmus+, COAST, NORDPLUS, as well as local private funds. Research activities at the Faculty are organized in research groups under special strategic research programs and/or research centres. Researchers work in multidisciplinary teams and in close cooperation with universities, research institutes and organisations at local, national and international level. The project will be anchored and carried out connecting it to the research programs, to the PhD program with its interdisciplinary Research Cluster “Critical and Practice-Oriented Educational Research” and to the research centre “Kindergarten Knowledge: Centre for Systemic Research on Diversity and Sustainable Futures”. It is an aim of the research cluster and KINDknow to use and develop a dynamic, comprehensive understanding of Bildung as well as participatory and practice oriented research methodologies based on values like equity and social justice.

Main Tasks in the Project

With its strong expertise in qualitative research on policies and practices in education systems, HVL will lead the WP5 on practice research. It will strongly contribute to the international comparison and conduct studies in Norway. Furthermore, it contributes to all the other WPs, esp. WP 2, 6, 7, 3 (policy analysis, integration of the perspectives, triangulation international/cross-cultural comparison, dissemination).