Vision
Knowledge for human development and a sustainable society
About the strategy
Strategy 2023-2030 for the Faculty of Teacher Education and Languages (LUSP) supports and builds on Østfold University College’s (HiØ) Strategy 2030 and highlights the faculty’s ambitions and objectives. The strategy is based on the university college’s core values and reflects the faculty’s work to promote respect and tolerance, critical thinking, academic freedom, sustainable development and democratic participation in all parts of the organisation. The strategy uses the collective pronoun ‘we’ throughout, which refers to the faculty as a whole and to HiØ’s strategy.
In order to highlight the faculty’s ambitions, the strategy is divided into three main parts: i) education, ii) research and artistic development work, and iii) dissemination. However, the work in these three areas should not be perceived as separate from each other, as they are closely interrelated, and build on and enrich each other.
HiØ’s and the faculty’s strategy will serve as a compass for the faculty towards 2030, where ambitions and goals will be highlighted in annual activity plans that describe specific measures and responsibilities. The faculty’s ambitions are highlighted in bold text and the objectives are in bullet point form. Both are mainly formulated in the present tense to indicate the achieved state in 2030.
The faculty is young and in academic and organisational development. A revision of the plan will therefore be facilitated in the middle of the strategy period, which will also take into account any adjustments made to HiØ’s Strategy 2030.
About the faculty
At the start of the strategy period, the faculty consists of three departments and one centre: the Department of Education, ICT and Learning; the Department of Languages, Literature and Culture; the Department of Natural Sciences, Practical-Aesthetic, Social and Religious Studies; and the Norwegian National Centre for English and other Foreign Languages in Education (The Foreign Language Centre). Through three transverse programmes of study, we train teachers for kindergarten, primary and lower secondary school, upper secondary school and adult education. We are one of the country’s largest providers of studies in English and foreign languages, from one-year programmes to master’s degree level, and we are a pioneer in online studies. We are a prominent actor in the continuing professional development market and facilitate lifelong learning in teacher education programmes and in language subjects.
The faculty’s overarching ambition is to provide excellent education, research, artistic development work and dissemination. In order to succeed in this, we must strengthen our efforts to deliver high-quality research and development-based education, be ambitious and innovative, and work systematically to disseminate the knowledge we develop. We will promote interdisciplinary work both internally at the faculty and across the university college’s faculties, especially targeting the two focus areas of Language in Learning and The Digital Society. We will build strong academic and research communities through targeted skills development and recruitment of employees with high educational and research competence, interact productively across the faculty and university college in general, and facilitate a good working and study environment in which the organisation’s needs are met and individual employees and students are safeguarded.
Education for knowledge and development
Our programmes of study are quality-oriented and innovation-oriented, socially relevant, and characterised by an active and inclusive study environment.
- We offer vocational education programmes and formal continuing education programmes, language, literature and culture programmes, and online studies of outstanding research-based quality.
- We offer programmes that give our students skills that are in demand in the 21st century.
- The development of vocational and academic competence in our vocational education programmes is progressing well.
- We have an innovative tripartite collaboration with the field of practice, and through targeted use of combination positions, we facilitate a professional community where the sharing of experience plays a key role.
- We have a professional community where academic staff develop innovative and student-active teaching.
- Our students possess skills in research and development work so that they can participate in and develop professional communities, and strengthen the quality of teaching in kindergartens and schools.
- We have a culture in which students complete their studies within the nominal length of time, and collaborate with the field of practice and/or are included in existing research projects regarding master’s thesis work.
- We have a high degree of internationalisation in our programmes of study, placing special emphasis on external funding of student and staff mobility and of relevant activities and projects.
- We have strengthened our collaboration with the Section for Pedagogical Development and Learning, and work to ensure that all employees have professional digital skills within their subject areas.
- Our external funding applications for educational development projects are of high quality and are strategically established within the organisation, and we have developed good routines regarding quality assurance and follow-up.
- We have investigated the basis for establishing a Centre for Excellence in Education and a PhD programme within the focus area of Language in Learning.
- We facilitate and encourage students, including online students, to participate actively in the development of study environments and thus contribute to maintaining a good psychosocial education and academic environment.
The PhD programme Digitalisation and Society – and relevant future PhD programmes – has a good intake of candidates from the faculty’s subject areas, and we deliver PhD supervision and teaching of outstanding quality.
- We systematically identify and recruit our master’s students to the university college’s PhD programmes.
- We have strengthened our research and academic communities and programmes of study by recruiting and increasing the number of PhD students through externally funded projects, and we are vigilant regarding opportunities to recruit Industrial PhD candidates, Public PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows.
- Together with the other faculties and the Norwegian Theatre Academy, we contribute to the stable operation and organisation of the university college’s PhD programmes.
- We offer PhD courses that are relevant to The Digital Society and DigiEd.
- We have a culture that promotes a good academic and social environment for doctoral research fellows.
- Our PhD candidates work at a high international academic level and are part of both national and international professional networks.
We profile the faculty and university college as a centre of expertise for languages within the fields of teacher education and language education.
- We have strengthened our role as a national provider of foreign languages in primary and lower secondary teacher education, and have entered into strategic collaboration agreements with national and international knowledge actors.
- We recruit student teachers from other teacher training institutions to study foreign languages as their second or third subject.
- We benefit from the Foreign Language Centre being part of the faculty by facilitating collaboration with our educational programmes that are in accordance with the centre’s mandate.
- We highlight topics within Language in Learning in relevant academic communities.
We stimulate lifelong learning in order to increase expertise, restructuring and participation in society, and to provide a better quality of life.
- We are a sought-after and preferred provider of continuing professional development for kindergarten teachers, primary and lower secondary school teachers and teachers in upper secondary teacher training, as well as in language subjects.
- We are part of a long-term regional collaboration with the public and private sectors, as well as flexible and decentralised continuing professional development programmes adapted to the region’s needs within the various teacher education programmes and languages.
- We have a financially sustainable model for the continuing professional development programmes.
- We offer continuing professional development programmes where online teaching can be combined with physical sessions.
- We have strengthened our dialogue with alumni to increase identification with the university college, improve our external relations, and obtain input on and recruit candidates to new professional development programmes.
- We constantly utilise applicable grant schemes in accordance with the competence needs of schools, kindergartens, The Educational Psychological Service, municipalities and county authorities, and facilitate partnerships through collaboration across academic communities and organisations.
Research and artistic development work
We conduct excellent research that is relevant to our programmes of study, to our research fields and to society.
- We conduct research activities and projects that strengthen the university college’s strategic focus areas, safeguard a diversity of research areas and projects, and are open to new ones that emerge.
- We conduct high-quality research in our own supervised professional training and programmes of study.
- We facilitate interdisciplinary and interfaculty research and development collaboration.
- We develop and submit applications for external funding of high-quality research that includes funding for recruitment positions such as doctoral research fellow and postdoctoral fellow.
- We prepare projects and submit applications for external funding that are a result of collaboration between artistic development work and scientific research.
- We work closely with the university college’s administrative research services and have good routines for following up and ensuring the implementation of projects.
- We use available resources in a way that ensures room for manoeuvre regarding the further development of research activities and artistic development work.
- We have a research culture where we collectively share knowledge and experiences that strengthen cohesion, raise competence and support research activity in the research groups, at the departments and at the faculty.
- We have a research practice that is in accordance with expectations and requirements regarding research ethics, data protection and Open Science.
- We take part in extensive and targeted collaboration with other higher education institutions and academic communities, both nationally and internationally, through joint research activities and artistic development work, and we also invite guest researchers to stays of varying durations.
- We actively initiate collaboration and innovation with the private and public sectors, especially within our region.
- We recruit externally funded associate professor/adjunct professor positions for specific tasks to strengthen research training, research and artistic development work at the faculty.
Our research groups promote high-quality research through their activities, organisation and systematic quality assurance work.
- Our research groups are involved in collaborative practices that strengthen the quality in all parts of the research activities.
- Our research groups contribute to skills development in the academic communities with special emphasis on including academic staff with shorter research experience, including doctoral research fellows and postdoctoral fellows, in a collectively oriented knowledge development.
- Our research groups work actively to include master’s students in ongoing research projects and are vigilant regarding the possibility of recruiting student assistants and research assistants.
- Our research groups work systematically on the external funding of research projects, artistic development work and innovation projects of different scales and from different sources of funding, both nationally and internationally.
We have systematically strengthened our work on qualification and promotion.
- We have practice in place that facilitates the planning of further qualification pathways for recently qualified doctoral candidates working at the faculty.
- We have helped to strengthen career development work that includes a mentoring programme for project managers of major research projects, a research management programme based on the same model as in comparable higher education institutions, as well as a supervisor development programme for employees who supervise master’s students and doctoral research fellows.
- We have contributed to developing a well-defined system for career development at the university college that harmonises with prevailing national and international guidelines.
- We have strengthened our work on skills and career development opportunities for our employees.
- We have strengthened our work on internationalisation in research and facilitate employee mobility and recruitment of international guest researchers associated with our projects.
Dissemination for understanding and debate
Through active dissemination of research and development to a wide audience, we contribute to an enlightened social and democratic debate.
- We promote knowledge-based decisions and democratic participation through nuanced public discussions.
- We have students who participate in the public debate and disseminate results from their master’s theses.
- We have dissemination plans for research results and share experiences from our programmes of study in different dissemination formats, in scientific and popular science channels, and within the field of art.
- We have strengthened our collaboration with the Section for Marketing and Communication, and we participate actively in the university college’s formal bodies for dissemination work.
We have helped ensure that the university college is a dynamic and vibrant arena for knowledge sharing.
- We arrange activities on and off campus that address topics relevant to the faculty’s activities, professional practitioners and citizens, and we utilise the potential that lies in digital dissemination
- We are involved in active interaction with external actors to strengthen dissemination work, gain more arenas for dissemination and reach a wider audience.
- We have arenas for co-creation where new practices are jointly developed by students, trade and industry, investors, public authorities, professional practitioners, academics and other citizens.
Our research results and experiences from educational development work are presented at strategically important national and international conferences.
- We disseminate information at educational, practice and policy-oriented conferences, both at home and abroad.
- We present research results and artistic development work at selected scientific conferences, nationally and internationally.
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