Research and academic activity
BI aims to have several disciplines ranked among the best in Europe to strengthen BI's international reputation, our academic influence and to recruit the best of academic employees.
We have organised our academic activity into nine academic departments (Read more about this here: bi.no/forskning). For an outline of the research projects BI is the institutional owner of or participating as a partner in, please see our overview on the national research database, Cristin.
BI has recently prioritised recruiting more academic staff through entry-level positions (tenure tracks) to increase the capacity of outstanding research and teaching. The proportion of academic staff with an international background, who have great research potential and can show solid results, has also been given priority.
In 2021, BI continued work to develop our nine research centres (BI Research Centres), all of which represent cutting-edge research. These deliver research of the highest quality, publish in scientific journals we consider the most prestigious in their disciplines, and have an ongoing and high degree of externally funded research activity and capacity. The centres will have both a national and international focus, in cooperation with our academic partners, business and society.
BI had an external evaluation of its research conducted in 2018. The BI Research Assessment (BIRA) involved a comprehensive and thorough review of BI's research institutes. A new BIRA started in 2021 and a final report from the independent committee will be available in the spring of 2022. This time, BI's nine research centres will also be part of the evaluation.
We also made investments into research quality last year through recruitment, prestigious scientific journals (ABS4*), externally funded research, administrative infrastructure and research incentive schemes. BI also wants to map the ways in which our research influences the world around us. We will increasingly encourage researchers to initiate projects that shed light on important and relevant issues in society and business.
Reporting on sustainability and impact
BI's contribution to the Big Question of sustainability should be research-driven. To gain insight into the effect of research at BI Norwegian Business School, we introduced an annual social impact report that looks at the significance of our research in 2020. The first report was published in the summer of 2020 and focused on sustainability in research. The second report was published in the summer of 2021, focusing on the influence of research.
Strengthen the data science research environment
Our research strategy has explicit objectives and instruments, including continuing with the recruitment of outstanding international academics to further build capacity for research and teaching. Another goal is the further development of our academic environment, which in its entirety covers the capacity and expertise needed to meet our ambitions for research and teaching.
To strengthen research capacity in applied statistics and informatics (data science), and to maintain a focus on outstanding learning, BI has established a new department (Data Science and Analysis), as well as entered into a close research collaboration with Simula, through the establishment of the Simula@BI Research Centre.
Collaborations with other outstanding research communities will be strengthened in general, but in this area in particular. The collaboration will provide more quality and depth to our research portfolio and strengthen the capacity for programme development and teaching. The goal is to build a reputation for research-based teaching in business analysis.
Externally funded research
Last year, BI had externally funded research projects with a total turnover value of just over 35.3 million kroner compared with almost 30 million in 2020. This is a positive increase because the pandemic actually displaced many of our research activities. BI's increased focus in this area, with particular emphasis on programmes under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway and EU, has yielded positive results.
The number of applications has remained at the same high level as the year before, and the share of applications with BI as project owner continued to increase somewhat (66% vs 63% in 2020).
As a research partner, BI entered into collaborations with REQ Capital, Equality Check AS, Great Consulting AS and AVO Consulting, and received a rejection from the Research Council of Norway for research on better investment decisions.
The Research Council of Norway also accepted BI's application for the Researcher Project for Young Talents, for our Funding Frictions after the Global Financial Crisis project which looks at how frictions affect funding for countries, banks, pension plans and insurance companies.
BI has also invested in administrative infrastructures by strengthening our Research Administrative Department (FA) with both resources and expertise. FA is BI's central administration office for research support, consisting of three main areas of responsibility: externally funded research support, handling of research data and BI's doctoral programme, respectively.
Publications and publishing points
We consider the preliminary results of our academic scientific production in 2021 to be very positive. BI aims to increase international research, scientific publications and our rate of published articles in the world's foremost scientific periodicals.
The proportion of publication points related to scientific journal articles increased sharply in 2021*. 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 sharply compared to the previous year.
*All publication figures for 2021 are preliminary figures (as of February 2022). 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. This endowment position is held by Professor Randi Lunnan. BI also has two more endowed professorships; Professor Ragnhils Kvålshaugen, funded by the Norwegian BAE industry (Building, Construction and Real Estate) and Professor Per Ingvar Olsen, funded by Tine and Nortura.
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.
In 2021, 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
BI's doctoral programme
Our doctoral programme is a driving force in the development of our academic staff, and we are prioritising an increase in the number of individuals in the programme. We have also increased our focus on admission quotas and steady follow-up of PhD candidates throughout the study period in recent years. In 2021, 11 thesis presentations were carried out, an increase from the previous year.
We think the quality of a PhD education is reflected in the quality of the institutions where the graduated candidates find jobs. In 2021, more of our graduates were recruited by prestigious employers. Good examples from 2021: Gilbert Kofi Adarkwah to HEC Montréal, Njål Andersen and Marius Andersson to NTNU, Christopher Sabel to the University of Münster and Emanuela Stagno to the University of Sussex.
- Namhee Matheson – Theory and Evidence on the Effect of Disagreement on Asset Prices
- Even Soltvedt Hvinden– Crude Games: Essays on strategic competition in oil markets
- Magnus Våge Knutsen – Essays on reputation
- Julia Zhulanova – Macroeconomic Dynamics, Commodity Prices and Expectations
- Njål Andersen– No article is an island entire of itself. Extending bibliometric science mapping in the field of management with social network analysis.
- Christopher Albert Sabel– Spinouts, Sharks, and Genealogy: Established Firms as Resource Acquisition Channel for Startups
- Emanuela Stagno– Some Consequences of Vulnerability in Consumers' Life
- Ilka Verena Ohlmer– The Social Side of Employee Pay. Exploring social-psychological outcomes and the explanatory mechanisms of employee pay standing from the social-effects perspective on pay.
- Gilbert Kofi Adarkwah – Institutions, Policy Risk, and Firms Behavior. Foreign Investments in High-Risk Countries.
- Marius Andersson– Texts and texturing in and around organisations: A discursive perspective on temporal work, future constructions, and managers' latitude of action.
- Espen Christopher Skretting– Firms, Oil and Stocks