Two new priority research centres at UiA

UiA already has six priority research centres. In 2021, the University Board was able to award this status to two other academic environments, this was decided on Wednesday 24 November.

The purpose of this status is to increase the impact of select environments, among other things with the goal of getting  increased external research funding and obtaining national centre status.

The priority research centre status entails annual allocations from the University Board (currently two million kroner) for five years and two recruitment posts, with the possibility of extension for another three years. In addition, the faculties involved contribute at least equivalent amounts.

The applications are assessed by internal and external parties, based on the following criteria:

• Scientific or artistic quality
• Level of ambition and goals
• Resilience
• Professional accordance with study programmes
• Contributions to UiA’s strategy
• Gender balance
• Organisation

You can read more about the UiA PRIFORSK scheme and the evaluation process on this website. 

Emergency management research

The Centre for Integrated Emergency Management (CIEM) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Agder. The centre focuses on how new technologies and innovation can improve emergency and disaster management.

CIEM’s goal is to contribute to public safety and the capability to counter crises, by developing and adapting new technological solutions and methods for emergency preparedness actors.

CIEM received excellent assessments in both internal and external evaluations and has generally scored high on all assessment criteria. The centre is judged to have high probability of meeting the University Board’s expectations of priority research centres. 

Intelligent signal processing and wireless networks

The members of the Priority Research Centre at UiA, Wisenet Centre.

The WISENET environment works with data analysis and machine learning for various applications, such as smart water networks and industrial plants.

The research focus is on how to retrieve meaningful information and perform different types of intelligent tasks based on enormous amounts of sensor data.

WISENET, like CIEM, has excellent assessments in both internal and external evaluations, and has scored high on all assessment criteria. The centre is considered to have high probability of meeting the University Board’s expectations of priority research centres.

Strong competition

The University Board emphasises that the competition in this year’s call for applications has been very high.

“The applications have maintained a very high standard, and several were qualified based on the criteria. The Board’s job was to prioritise two of them based on both external and internal evaluations”, says rector and chair Sunniva Whittaker.

A total of seven centres applied for this status:

1. Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (CASH) (Faculty of Humanities and Education)
2. Centre for Digital Transformation (CeDiT) (Faculty of Social Sciences)
3. Center for Financial and Economic Behaviour (School of Business and Law)
4. Centre for Integrated Emergency Management (CIEM) (Faculty of Social Sciences)
5. Research Centre for Female Inclusion & Development in Exercise and Sport (FIDES) (Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences)
6. Research Centre for Studies of Innovation for Sustainable Transition (RIST) (School of Business and Law)
7. Intelligent Signal Processing & Wireless Networks (WISENET) (Faculty of Engineering and Science)

The decision states:

“The University Board thanks all the seven research communities that submitted applications and recognises strong qualities in all these initiatives. The University Board emphasises that the competition in this year’s call has been very high.”