🌍 Join the conversation on Solidarity, Social Justice, and Sustainability! 🌱✨
Our upcoming conference embraces inclusivity and broad perspectives on these critical themes. 🎤 Call for Panels, Workshops, & Side Events opens early December and closes January 24th—perfect timing to showcase your ideas!
Encourage PhDs, young scholars, and colleagues to start brainstorming submissions now. Let’s shape an inspiring and impactful program together!
💡 Learn more on our website https://www.nmbu.no/evu/nordev25-solidarity-social-justice-and-sustainability-be-held-nmbu-24-26th-september-2025.
In 2023, the government decided that students from countries outside the EU must pay tuition fees to study at Norwegian educational institutions. Since then, the number of students from countries outside the EEA area has plummeted.
At UiA this year, only 17 international students pay tuition fees, nine of whom receive support through various scholarship schemes. This decline is clearly felt in studies such as the bachelor’s and master’s programmes in development studies, which were known for their international diversity among students. Now, almost all students in these programs have either Norwegian or European passports.
During Arendal Week, researchers at the Faculty of Social Sciences arranged a panel debate on the societal consequences of Norwegian lecture halls losing much of their diversity. The debate was chaired by Professor Ann Christin Nilsen at the Department of Sociology and Social Work and was arranged in collaboration with the Norwegian Association for Development Research (NFU) and SAIH.
The debate was held four years after the white paper “A world of opportunities”, in which it was argued that global problems require global solutions and more cooperation across national borders. Since then, a lot has changed. The introduction of tuition fees for students outside the EU is part of a pattern in which other support for collaboration with research and educational institutions in the Global South is also either cut or reduced. This includes support schemes such as NORGLOBAL and NORPART, which have long contributed to cooperation with countries outside the West.
A small band-aid on a large wound
To compensate for some of the drop in the number of international students, the authorities have introduced a scholarship scheme for students from selected countries in the Global South.
However, the scholarship scheme is only a small band-aid on a big wound, according to panelist and associate professor Arnhild Leer-Helgesen at the Department of Global Development and Planning. She pointed out that the scholarship scheme applies to few students and is also covered by the aid budget, which means that it in reality affects Norway’s ability to provide aid.
Came like lightning from a clear sky
UiA Rector Sunniva Whittaker also participated in the panel. She emphasized that the introduction of tuition fees came like lightning from a clear sky, but that it nevertheless draws into a pattern where the international aspect is given lower priority in research and education policy. Economy and savings were used as the main arguments for the introduction, but Whittaker wondered about the cost. UiA has largely managed to fill the study places with other students, but the diversity among the students has decreased. Whittaker fears this will affect the quality of the studies.
This view was shared by Professor Iver B. Neuman, director of the Fritjof Nansen Institute. He emphasized that discussions among fellow students from different backgrounds provide invaluable training in globalization and cosmopolitan conversation, which is essential for solving global challenges and living together.
Important to stand up for the principle of free higher education
SAIH leader Selma Bratberg also participated in the debate. She pointed out that the global situation for higher education is serious, with rising tuition fees and pressure on students’ freedom of expression.
“It is important that Norway stands up for the principle of free education,” she continued.
Bratberg also claimed that students, both now and throughout history, have been an important driving force for democracy, human rights and social change.
“In a world where authoritarian forces and nationalism are on the rise, it is extra scary
In the autumn of 2020 – while the pandemic was still raging – the Storting’s report on student mobility called “A world of opportunities” came out. The foreword to the message states: “Spring 2020 has clearly shown us how dependent we are on each other and how intertwined the world is. International cooperation and dialogue across national borders are prerequisites for being able to handle the major global social challenges the world is facing. Global challenges require global solutions.” Just over two years later, tuition fees were introduced for students from countries outside Europe and the result is markedly fewer international students at Norwegian universities. This is part of a larger picture where support for collaboration with higher education institutions and researchers in the global south is cut or reduced (e.g. NORGLOBAL and NORPART). What are the immediate consequences of this for the quality of education and research? Should we see these policy changes as something more than domestic education and research policy? What long-term consequences could this have for the labor market and Norway’s international relations? At Arendalsuka, we invite you to a discussion about who the Norwegian authorities have in mind when exchange and academic cooperation are to contribute to finding global solutions to global challenges.
The 5th Joint Nordic Conference on Development Research (NorDev) ‘Knowledge Production in North-South Collaboration: Challenges in an Era of New Global Divides’ 27-28th June 2019, Copenhagen
Call for working groups and panels
Asymmetric local and global power relations are on the rise. These include deepening divides between North and South. Politically, academically, socially and on a range of other fronts, Northern governments have increasingly returned to a narrow minded, self-oriented development path. Despite official rhetoric such as the SDGs and the Paris Declaration, the spirit and practice of solidarity is more remote than for years. Restrictions on academic movement, prioritization of North-centred issues and lack of interest in addressing key social and environmental challenges in the South are some of the worrying trends. However, divides and imbalances are not only observable between countries and regions, but emerging within societies across the planet. Elite projects and exclusivist populism are a global phenomenon and affect the well-being of people everywhere.
The 5th Joint Nordic Conference on Development Research aspires to address these trends and challenges through a format including keynote presentations, panels and working groups, roundtables and poster presentations, and to enable dialogue and networking between participants from all parts of the world. We welcome especially contributions that analyse and challenge global divides in the thematic areas of knowledge production; institutions of global governance; distribution of resources and wealth but also of risks; migration and climate change policies; or the formulation and implementation of the SDGs, to name but a few.
We invite proposals for working groups and panels. Each working group (section) consists of up to three panels. Each panel is planned for 90 minutes and should consist of 3-4 papers, a chair and a discussant. Working groups can have a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 12 papers. It is also possible to propose single panels, consisting of 3-4 paper givers or contributors. Panels may also be organised as roundtables or poster presentations.
Call for permanent panels at NFU conferences 2019-2021
Are you working on an exciting research theme within development studies? We invite established research groups and clusters to propose and take responsibility in organizing panels on a single, broad theme, for three years connected to the annual NFU conferences: The Norwegian development conference by NFU (2020) and the Nordic development conferences (2019, 2021).
The permanent panels intend to provide continuity in the themes and research groups represented at these conferences. This will enable the research groups to consolidate research networks around their theme, and other conference participants to get an opportunity to follow a theme develop over time. The panels should strive to make the geographical focus as broad as possible.
The 2019 Nordic conference will take place in Copenhagen in June 27-28, organized by University of Copenhagen and the Danish Association for development research. Call for papers will be launched in short time. The 2020 NFU conference by NFU is a joint conference with a partner (TBC). The 2021 Nordic conference will take place in Finland.
The permanent panels from 2016-2018 have been “Asian Transformations: Theories, Challenges, Opportunities”, “Food in a changing world”, “Power, Resistance, and Development in the Global South” and “What Works in Development?”. For more about the previous panels, please visit http://nfu.no/nfu-panels-2016-19/. The panels have worked very well and provided a continuum in topical and scholarly interest. We would encourage all research environments, also those who have organized the permanent panels since 2016, to submit a proposal.
Please submit a brief concept note (150 words) on proposal for permanent panels. Up to four panels for a period of three years will be approved by the NFU board.
