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NorDev25: Solidarity, social justice and sustainability to be held at NMBU 24th-26th of September 2025

Welcome to the 8th Joint Nordic Development Research conference (NorDev) to be held at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) in the Fall of 2025.  The theme of the conference is “Solidarity, social justice and sustainability”: Nurturing academic-civic solidarity, fostering social justice, and cultivating collaborations in an era of uncertainty”. NorDev25 is organised by NMBU, with support from the university’s Global South Working Group, and the Norwegian Association for Development Research (NFU).

The conference will gather researchers, scholars, students, policy makers and civil society actors from the Nordic counties and from collaborating universities and partners in other parts of the world, including the Global South, to discuss how to strengthen solidarity and social justice across borders and secure progress towards social, economic and environmental sustainability and equality for all.

Find more detail here https://www.nmbu.no/evu/nordev25-solidarity-social-justice-and-sustainability-be-held-nmbu-24-26th-september-2025.

If you are interested and want to be updated, please click here to register: https://nettskjema.no/a/465907#/page/1

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Yes to international students, No to pointless money moving!

The government continues to weaken internationalisation and cooperation within research and higher education with countries outside EU/EØS

The proposed Norwegian State budget for 2025 continues to weaken the possibilities for international cooperation of research and education with partners outside of Europe. In Panorama Nyheter you can read some of the reactions to new cuts, and the model where school fees in Norway are paid by the development aid budget. NFU Chair Arnhild Leer-Helgesen (UiA) and the leader of SAIH, Selma Bratberg, are among those who warn against the consequences of these continuous cuts:

https://www.panoramanyheter.no/saih-statsbudsjett2025-statsbudsjettet/harreisende-at-regjeringen-vil-bruke-50-bistandsmillioner-pa-studieavgifter-i-norge/373808

https://www.panoramanyheter.no/jobb-og-studier-statsbudsjett2025-statsbudsjettet/ja-til-internasjonale-studenter-nei-til-meningslos-pengeflytting/374481

A translation of the second article can be found here: (and then add a link to your translation).

Yes-to-international-students-no-to-pointless-money-moving-2Download
NFU Chair Arnhild Leer-Helgesen
SAIH Leader, Selma Bratberg
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Publishment

Routledge Handbook of Childhood Studies and Global Development.

This Routledge Handbook of Childhood Studies and Global Development explores how global development agendas and economic development influence children’s lives. It demonstrates that children are not only the frequent targets or objects of development but that they also shape and influence processes of development and social change in diverse and meaningful ways.
The handbook makes the case for the importance of placing children at the heart of development debates, examining the complex social, historical, cultural, economic, epidemiological, ecological, geopolitical, and institutional processes transforming what it means to be young in the world today. Through reports on field research as well as a critical engagement with theories in development studies and childhood studies, contributions unravel the structural connections of global development processes as they relate to children’s life worlds. They tease out and tease apart how global developmental processes influence children’s lives, how children inform and shape development, why it is important to keep children at the centre of debates linked to development and socio-cultural change, and ways of engaging children in development research, policies and practices.
Organised in seven sections and 45 chapters showcasing research from both established scholars and early career researchers, and with particular prominence given to the work of authors from the global south, this handbook will be an essential reference for policymakers, practitioners, and for researchers and students across childhood studies, education, geography, sociology, and international development.

Link for purchasing the book is also found here: Routledge Handbook of Childhood Studies and Global Development – 1st E

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Development Research Funding: Considerable cuts taking place in Sweden, Norway follows similar measurements

  • About two-thirds of respondents (65%) say their work was either discontinued or significantly altered as a result of the funding cuts.
  • 48% of the respondents in research/academia have adjusted their research in response to the funding cuts. Respondents are reportedly shifting their research focus to topics more likely to attract funding and more relevant to the Global North.
  • 93% of respondents believe that the impacts of the cuts for the Global South are negative – both in the short and long term.

Click on the link bellow to read the full article

Report: The consequences of development research funding cuts
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NFU statement regarding school fees in Norway

The General Assembly of NFU unanimously supports the movement resisting school fees for international students from outside EU/EØS and Switzerland and applauds the strong opposition from the higher education sector and parts of the political parties. As a global development research community, we are deeply worried about the consequences these fees will have on the quality and relevance of education and research in Norway.

In a time when we lift the Sustainable Development Goals as a common global project, we need knowledge, perspectives and cooperation that include all regions of the world. School fees do not only affect individual students, but the entire higher education system in Norway. The quality and relevance of our education will be weakened, as we will miss important critical perspectives and be more narrow-minded. As researchers and educators within the field of global development, we know how teaching a truly international student group challenges all involved and leads to a unique co-creation of knowledge. In addition, relationships between students from different places have lasting effects and create bonds that lead to more cooperation in research and current or future workplaces. If these school fees become a reality, Norway will lose both in terms of quality of education and research, and international networks.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that in a world that is ever more connected, the plurality and diversity brought by students from different parts of the world can help Norway become a more rounded and inclusive country.

The introduction of these school fees for students from outside EU/EØS and Switzerland can be seen as discriminatory and cause students from other parts of the world to not feel welcomed, which in the long run will be detrimental to Norwegian educational environment.

Therefore, we at NFU stand in opposition of these fees.

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NFU Chairwomen speaks on Skolepenger

There is an ongoing discussion in Norway regarding a proposition for students outside of the EU/EØS  and Switzerland to start paying tuiton when they chose to study in Norway.

Proposition 68L (2022-2023) has raise a ,ot of opposition with several organizations and universtities, such as SAIH, Universitet i Agder, NTNU and others standing against it. They all fear that this will create a barrier for students to come to Norway as well as being a starting point to start charging tuition to all students in the future.

NFU chairwoman, Arnhild Leer-Helgesen states that “The implementation of school-fees for students outside Europe/EØS and Switzerland is a serious backlash for the quality and relevance of higher education and research in Norway. To face the multiple crisis in the world we need more exchange of perspectives and knowledge, not less. The contribution of students and researchers from the so-called “Global South” to co-creation of knowledge, is heavily underrated. With this cut, adding to cuts in funds for research in the broad field of global development, Norway has less capacity to develop the knowledge we need to contribute towards the Sustainable Development Goals.”

If you wish to join the fight against the introduction of skolepenger, sign the petition started by SAIH:

https://www.change.org/p/do-not-introduce-tuition-fees-for-non-eu-students-in-norway

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Meet NFU: Student Coordinator

This week we would like to introduce our student coordinator Julia Baldanza. Julia has been working with us at NFU since the beggining of September 2022.

She joined NFU because she believes that having a strong network connecting people working in development is important to allow them to share experiences and enrich the field and she wanted to contribute to making that happen.

Her main tasks are providing support for our board and being in charge of the social media accounts, as well as serving as a point of contact for those who wish to publice upcoming events, courses, conferences and workshops. If you would like to have NFU publicize your event, please reach out to her through nfucoordinator@gmail.com .

She is currently a master’s students in Global Development at the University of Agder and is writing her thesis with a focus on gender and health. Her main topics of interest are gender and politics.

Coming from South America, she believes that the development field is important because it can be essential in changing our world and that the latests changes in the field allowing for more perspectives from the global South to be heard show how much the field has to grow.

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Development, Learning and Education: Post-pandemic Considerations

The 6th joint Nordic Development Research Conference, June 21-22, 2021, ONLINE, by  the University of Jyväskylä, Finland https://www.jyu.fi/en/congress/nordic-development-research

Call for papers for 15 exciting open working groups : DL 9th April 2021   

The conference invites abstracts for papers to be presented from development research scholars from every career stage. All abstracts should be submitted for consideration in the accepted working groups. The working group coordinators will evaluate them and make decisions on their acceptance/rejection. The authors are requested to indicate a primary and a secondary working group for which s/he wishes the paper to be considered. The abstract of maximum of 400 words should be submitted in English (or Spanish for the bilingual working group) latest on 9th April 2021. The decisions will be communicated by 30th April 2021.  The submission should be done through the conference system: find the abstract form here.  We do not accept abstracts submissions by email.   The authors are advised to have a close look at the available working groups before submission and relate their abstract with the overall theme of the working group. All the working groups will be conducted online. Please see the detailed descriptions of working groups here. The journal Forum for Development Studies will publish a Special Issue on the best papers of the conference. The special issue will be guest edited by selected members of the organizing committee, who will do the initial selection for the papers to be included and provide one round of editorial comments during August-October before authors’ submissions for the final blind review process. If you would like your paper to be considered for the special issue, please send you conference paper no later than 25th June in the conference email nordev2021@jyu.fi. Please indicate “FDS special issue” in the subject field of your email.


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NFU General Assembly

Dear NFU members,

We would like to remind you and share the meeting link for our virtual General Assembly 2020-2021. We have already emailed the link to the members. However, many of the emails have bounced back. If you have not received the email, you can fill in your working/updated email address on the form below so that we can send you the meeting link again.

Agendas:

  1. Constitute meeting and approve agenda
    1. Election of General Assembly Chair and two reporters
    2. Approval of agenda
  2. Board changes
  3. NFU Annual Report 2020
  4. Annual plan and budget for 2021
  5. Master thesis award
  6. Debate: NFU strategic planning for development research
  7. Incoming business

We look forward to seeing you.