ARENA's purpose and vision
ARENA shall be a leading academic environment on political integration and cooperation in Europe.
ARENA’s core purpose is to provide excellent research on the evolving multilevel European political order, including Norway’s role in it. ARENA’s research shall provide innovative and credible answers to significant questions. By significant questions, we mean research questions that contain theoretical and/or empirical puzzles of high scientific and societal relevance. Such questions have the potential of raising interest and addressing concerns both within and outside academia. By credible answers, we mean answers based on purposeful research designs that provide sound arguments in favour of the propositions we make. Innovative answers provide new insights beyond the expected.
ARENA’s research shall have impact, by which we mean that our findings are being acknowledged and have long-term effects on research and in society. Scholars, students, policy practitioners and/or the general public should pay attention to what we find.
Besides its core purpose of research excellence, ARENA shall be a leading hub for theoretically and empirically informed public debate on the transformation of the European political order. Since ARENA started its activities in 1994, European political, economic, social and legal integration has deepened, both within the European Union (EU) and between Norway and the EU. The societal issues that Norwegians care most about – including welfare, climate, energy, migration, security, trade, human rights – are to an increasing extent determined by decisions made in Europe. ARENA responds to the need in Norway for an easily accessible reservoir of research-based knowledge useful for navigating the changing European landscape.