Areas of responsibility
Knudsen holds a PhD in cultural geography from Lund University and a Master’s degree cultural geography from the University of Oslo. He has been employed with several research institutions including Statistics Norway, Agder Research, Nordregio (Stockholm) and the University of Agder. He has previously served as a political editor of the Norwegian daily newspaper, Fædrelandsvennen. He has also been a self-employed consultant for a longer period.
Knudsen has published nationally and internationally within the fields of cultural and political geography, cultural sociology, education, innovation and planning. Recent publications (2015-2019) include journals as European Planning Studies, Social Compass, Journal of The knowledge Economy, and Regional Studies, and publishers as Routledge, Springer, Fagbokforlaget and Cappelen Damm.
Knudsen serves as the Chairman of the Faculty Board of Landscape and Society at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). He is appointed as a member of the Norwegian Committee on Skill Needs (2021-2023). He has also been appointed as a member of the Governmental Expert Committee on the Regional Reform by the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation (2017-18). He has been nominated by the same Ministry as the Norwegian ESPON contact point (ECP) to the EU for the period 2015-2018. He has previously served as the Dean of the former University of Agder, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences. He also chaired (2017) the evaluation of the BA and MA Planning Programmes at the University of Tromsø.
Knudsen is presently engaged in the EU Horizon 2020 projects GI-NI and Bridges. He has previously been engaged in several research programmes and projects. These include RegReSIr, Learning Regions (2015), VRI and the agenda setting book Politikk for innovative regioner.Oslo: Cappelen Damm. (2016 with Rune Dahl Fitjar and Arne Isaksen). All of these projects were (co-)financed by the Norwegian Research Council.
Research
Academic interests
Knudsen conducts research drawing on theories linking culture, politics and economics. He is especially interested in the cultural roots of economic behaviour and thinking as they come to the forefront in regional Europe.
Teaching includes:
Institutional economics (master)
Methods in social science (master)
Innovation and Entrepreneurship (bachelor)
Urban and Regional Planning (bachelor)
Supervision of several master students