Norwegian version

Strategic action plan: Centre for the study of professions 2025–2030

This action plan builds on OsloMet’s overarching strategy and is developed in line with the Centre for the Study of Professions’ academic profile and societal contribution.

The facade of OsloMet as seen from the street, with the university's logo on the wall.

Our societal mission

The Centre for the study of professions (SPS) is the only research environment in Norway that studies professions as institutionalised education pathways, career trajectories, social institutions, and practical fields of expertise.

This comprehensive approach is made possible through an interdisciplinary perspective and has, in turn, ensured that the centre’s research plays an active role in policy development.

At the core of the centre’s activities is the highly regarded PhD programme in the study of professions, which is OsloMet’s oldest doctoral programme.

SPS also publishes the peer-reviewed, English-language journal Professions & Professionalism, an important international outlet for research on professions.

SPS aims to be:

Academic support functions and courses

SPS plays a key internal role at OsloMet in the development of generic academic skills.

The centre is responsible for OsloMet’s mandatory courses in university pedagogy, the merit scheme for excellent teaching, training for PhD supervisors, and coordinates the university’s training in research ethics for staff.

SPS also offers annual PhD courses in qualitative and quantitative methods, professional ethics, and philosophy of science, which are well attended by PhD candidates across OsloMet’s faculties.

SPS aims to be:

Research and development

Ongoing developments in society present new challenges for research on professions.

To ensure continued relevance for professional education, occupational groups, and decision-makers, the centre will strengthen its expertise particularly within the following three thematic areas:

Professions in the digital society

Digitalisation is transforming the professions. We are witnessing a democratisation of knowledge, with public access to information that was once the exclusive domain of experts. Automation and artificial intelligence are assuming tasks previously performed by professionals, while professional practitioners face new demands for digital competence.

Digital technologies may enhance accessibility, efficiency, and user involvement in professional services. At the same time, they may weaken personal contact, exacerbate social inequality, and challenge professional ethical standards.

These developments raise fundamental questions about how we understand knowledge, expertise, judgment, trust, and the professions in a society increasingly shaped by digital technologies.

SPS aims to examine both the opportunities and the challenges of digitalisation’s impact on professional work, contributing critical insights into the future role of professions in a digital society.

SPS will conduct research on:

Inequality, marginalisation, and inclusion

Inequalities in education, income, and wealth affect both individual life chances and broader societal cohesion. Access to these resources varies with gender, social background, class, ethnicity, and disability status.

Processes of marginalisation and inclusion also take place within professions and organisations, shaped by political, social, and cultural dynamics. Key questions include the extent to which discrimination and social closure occur in education and the labour market.

Large disparities can have damaging consequences at the societal level, including reduced trust, heightened conflict, and lower productivity.

The Norwegian welfare state is partly designed to reduce inequality and mitigate its negative effects. Professions within core welfare institutions—schools, health services, the judiciary, police, and social services—play a central role in this effort. However, recruitment into these professions often lacks demographic representativeness, particularly in high-prestige fields such as medicine and law. Professions can thus both mitigate and reproduce inequality.

Understanding these dynamics requires both qualitative and quantitative studies, spanning micro-level professional practice and macro-level structures such as recruitment patterns, career paths, and political processes.

SPS will conduct research on:

Knowledge production, expertise, and politics

Professions are based on and manage scientific knowledge, and their legitimacy rests on public trust in that knowledge. In recent decades, many Western societies have seen a rise in mistrust toward both knowledge and the institutions that produce it, with trust varying significantly by socioeconomic background.

To understand public trust in science and institutions, one must examine how academic institutions function and how scientific knowledge is used in policymaking and interacts with experiential and practical knowledge among citizens and civil society.

Professions act as key stewards of scientific knowledge and serve as meeting points between academic expertise and everyday life.

A key priority for the centre is therefore to investigate knowledge, trust, and expertise in the context of the professions, including a particular focus on academia and higher education.

We aim to advance understanding of the role of knowledge in governance and society and to explore the complexity of trust—both in knowledge and in professional practitioners.

This includes studying the roles and practices of researchers, their relationships with clients, users, and stakeholders, and the interplay between knowledge, trust, and professional authority. We will also examine how these factors affect professional practice and education.

SPS will conduct research on:

Collaboration and societal impact

Research from SPS has actively informed policy development, and the centre has led several large projects commissioned by the Norwegian government. Notably, researchers from SPS served as independent experts for a commissioned report ordered by the Expert Committee on Academic Freedom of Expression (Kierulf Committee) and served as the secretariat for the expert groups on the teaching profession and the governance of teacher education.

SPS will continue to produce research that is relevant to Norwegian society and will further strengthen this relevance through expanded collaboration with researchers at OsloMet, across Norway, and internationally.

SPS will:

OsloMet strategy, vision and sub-strategies

P.O. Box 4, St. Olavs plass
NO-0130 Oslo
Norway
Tel.: +47 67 23 50 00
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