Research news

While Palestinians see the Israeli occupation as the core of the conflict, Israelis defend the occupation in terms of their security.

Providing care for ageing parents can corrode your health more than raising your children, according to a new study. But while the state has generous welfare schemes for parents, there is little work leave to be had when it's mum or dad that needs your help

Immigrant women who bring a spouse from their country of origin have poorer career prospects, according to a new doctoral thesis.

In 2015, in Maka Sarr, a small remote village in Senegal, a company called `Enersa’ established a 10 kWp solar power plant with a 1.5 km underground distribution network to provide electricity to the households and small businesses. A team of researchers from Norway and Kenya visited the village to understand the energy access situation and learn from the solar hybrid mini-grids that have been installed by private developers.

Read the full article on www.theenergycollective.com

If you are a male immigrant and marry a woman from a country other than your own, you increase your chances of a good job and a high income. This applies whether the woman you marry is Norwegian or not.

Kenya Renewable Energy Association (KEREA) has become a part of the Solar xChange project team. This partnership will strengthen the project's links to the renewable energy sector in Kenya and thereby its outreach in dissemination of research results.

Kerea's website

TERI in association with the University of Oslo organized a "Workshop on Village Scale Solar Power Supply Models" under the ongoing project 'Solar xChange' on April 21, 2015 at TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bengaluru.

You can read about the workshop at www.teriin.org

Something happens to a society after a terrorist attack. Tore Witsø Rafoss has studied the reactions in the US and Norway after 11 September 2001 and 22 July 2011 and found some surprising similarities.

Despite the fact that both men have grown up in Norway and have the same education and work experience, Norwegian employers choose Knut more often than Muhammed.

Seeing possibility in unlikely places is arguably at the very heart of transformation. With global environmental problems, including climate change, we are confronted with an unprecedented sense of urgency. Such a sense of urgency can be motivating, but also debilitating. Perhaps it is the slow and artistic transformation of the everyday that is truly critical. Art opens up opportunity to create moments in the city, a momentary disruption to material and human flows.  It slows us down or even stops us for a moment, and sometimes presents us with a new perspective.  The art of transformation in urban areas will be realised by creating moments of possibility.

Read the full blog entry by Emma Arnold and Karen O Brien on the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change blog

Women have higher levels of sick leave than men, but it's not a higher work load that is to blame, according to new research. If we are to understand the causes of women's high levels of sick leave we must look beyond the workplace, says researcher Anne May Melsom.

Parents on Oslo’s East side have little reason to fear that a high proportion of immigrant pupils in schools in itself hampers student performance, according to new research.

Drugs are usually associated with vulnerable social groups. New research reveals that amphetamine, however, is used by some in physically demanding manual jobs - to sustain long working hours.

Fighting for the rights of migrant workers in China - without over-stepping the limits of what the authorities allow - is a difficult balancing act. But grassroots organizations are becoming increasingly brave, a new doctoral thesis shows.

Norwegian women who choose to have children say goodbye to exciting career opportunities. Men, on the other hand, work on.

People love to reminisce about a rosy past. In his PhD thesis Hans Erik Næss shows that nostalgic memories are not an obstacle, but an important tool to further develop rallying.

Karen O'Brien, one of the lead authors of the IPCC's next report, is an optimist. For it is we as a society that holds the key to making the changes that are needed.

After the great floods in Gudbrandsdalen valley here in Norway and in Hungary - What new knowledge do we have about extreme weather and climate change? How can we reduce the risk of injury in the future? Such questions are the theme of the Extreme Dialogue Tuesday 18 June at 12-3pm, at the University of Oslo..

A conference where speed presentations and fishbowl dialogues replace tedious monologues? Where an artist gets as much time to talk as a researcher? Where the public have a platform to have their say? Yes, to change society we must also change academia, say the organizers.

World trade is increasingly dominated by the countries of the South. A recent study examines how the migration of people in the South enables the flow of goods.

Cohabitation, gay marriage and single parents, bonus children and bonus parents. These modern forms of cohabitation do not indicate that the family as an institution is about to disappear. The family lives on in the best of health, but in new ways, say the editors of a new book.

There is no difference in the leadership styles of men and women. In groups comprised of both genders, an androgynous leadership style was found to be the best for creating a climate for innovation, argues Anne Grethe Solberg in her doctoral thesis.

Read the article at KILDEN

Professor Karen O'Brien, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, has been awarded the prestigious Burtoni Award for her pioneering contributions in social science climate research.

The “Transformation in a  Changing  Climate” conference aims to fill significant research gaps on transformation by  bringing together diverse  perspectives on deliberate transformation in response to climate change. The conference  will serve as a creative, innovative and  inspirational gathering that  catalyzes new insights on transformation processes and the implications for research, policy and practice. Such insights will contribute to international transdisciplinary research initiatives, including Future Earth.

Karen O'Brien held the WALTER ORR ROBERTS PUBLIC LECTURE on the theme "Changing the script on climate change: Transformative views on humanity's role" 22 MAY 2012.

You can listen to the lecture online on the Aspen Global Change Institute website