Research and academic activity

BI Resarch Assessment

Every five years, an external peer review of the research and academic environments at BI is carried out. The BI Research Assessment (BIRA) aims to provide guidelines for our strategy to become a leading business school in Europe by evaluating research activities, the management's prioritisation of resources and the extent to which we manage to cultivate an environment that promotes excellent research. An external committee was set up in 2021, and a final report with recommendations was ready in June 2022.

The most important recommendations from the committee are:

• Incentivise research production by freeing up time for research and establishing clear promotion criteria.
• Ensure and communicate equal and clear insurance conditions for all faculty across the departments.
• Design a long-term and clear strategy to meet the challenges of teaching capacity through recruitment and the right professional composition.
• Further internationalisation by delivering more courses in English, focusing on recruitment from the international labour market and keeping the international faculty at BI.
• Develop a clear strategy and establish an evaluation process for the research centres, and ensure that this is communicated across all institutes and centres.
• Benchmark BI against international institutions that it's natural that BI compares itself to.

In 2022, BI further invested in increased research quality through recruitment, publications in top journals, externally funded research, administrative infrastructure and incentive schemes for research. BI also wants to map how our research affects the world around us. As a result, we will increasingly encourage researchers to initiate projects that shed light on important and relevant issues in society and business.

Externally funded research

Last year, BI had externally funded research projects with a total turnover value of just over MNOK 49.3 compared with almost MNOK 35.3 in 2021. This is a positive increase because the pandemic displaced many of our research activities. BI's increased focus in this area, emphasising programmes under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway and EU, has yielded positive results.

The number of applications has maintained the same high level as the previous year. However, the proportion of applications with BI as project owner was 58%, somewhat lower than in 2021.

BI researchers joined a management group for two projects in the COST network. For the first time, a BI researcher was granted an application for a CAS project (The Center for Advanced Study at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters).

BI has also invested in administrative infrastructure by strengthening the Research Administrative Department (FA) with resources and expertise. FA is BI's central administration for research support, consisting of three main areas of responsibility: externally funded research support, handling of research data and BI's doctoral programme.

Publications and publishing points

We consider the preliminary results of our academic scientific production in 2022 to be very positive. BI aims to increase international research, scientific publications and our rate of published articles in the world's leading scientific periodicals.

The proportion of publication points related to scientific journal articles increased further in 2022*. The share of publication points related to level 2 publications also showed good development. The number of prestigious scientific journals (ABS4* and ABS4) also increased compared to the previous year.

*All publication figures for 2022 are preliminary (as of February 2023). The final figures will be published in April.

Endowed professorships

BI receives financial support from companies and other donors to fund our endowed professorships. In 2020, funding for an endowed professorship began, sponsored by the foundation Skipsreder Tom Wilhelmsens Stiftelse. Professor Randi Lunnan holds this endowment position. In 2022, Skipsreder Tom Wilhelmsen's foundation chose to continue funding his endowment professorship for a new 5-year period.

In addition, BI Professor Ragnhild Kvålshaugen holds an endowment professorship funded by the Norwegian BAE industry (Building, Construction and Real Estate)

Executive in Residence

In 2019, BI hired its first Executive in Residence, a measure to connect people with relevant experience from working life more closely with academic communities and students at BI.

To connect business and academia more closely, BI has employed several Executives in Residence in recent years. They have expertise in various fields, helping to ensure that experience and practical competence are closely linked to the research environment and the students at BI.

In 2022, these included:

• Berit Svendsen, Head of Vipps International – Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
• Jostein Tvedt, chief strategist at Danske Bank – Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship
• Tom Remlov, former opera and theatre director – Department of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour
• Sindre Støer, Head of Verdipapirforetakenes Forbund – Department of Law and Governance
• Odd-Harald Berg Wasenden, partner in the law firm Arntzen de Besche – Department of Law and Governance