The government set aside NOK 300 million to raise star scientists from the United States and other countries. Now the first transitions are clear.
The card version
- The government has set aside NOK 300 million to attract star scientists from abroad.
- The first signings are now ready. 14 researchers from prestigious universities in the United States come to Norway.
- The scheme is partly a reaction to the Trump administration’s policy, which has adversely affected American research.
The summary is made using artificial intelligence (KI) and quality assured by Aftenposten’s journalists.
This weekend a new season of the Premier League starts, and it is spoken in the spoken about which players are picked up where. But English football clubs are not the only ones who spend hundreds of millions on new stars.
In June, it became clear that Norway, partly as a result of Trump’s threats to US universities, will spend NOK 300 million to tempt talented researchers from abroad to Norway.
– We are a small country, and we do not solve the tasks we will solve alone. This is one of the many steps we take to improve international cooperation, says Research and Higher Education Minister Sigrun Aasland.
Sigrun Aasland
Minister of Research and Higher Education
Aftenposten has now accessed the names of the first 14 signings. 13 of these work as researchers in the United States, several of them at prestigious universities.
But when we made contact, not everyone knew they were on the list.
– I’m overwhelmed
-It was your email that made me find out that I had received funding, and I was so overwhelmed that I needed time to process it.
That is what one researcher answers when we get in touch. The woman who is in her late 20s and researches genetics and stem cells in the United States wants to be anonymous until she has shared the news with colleagues and workplace. She has been allocated NOK 6 million in support to switch grazing to the University of Bergen.
The researcher says that she first got to know Norwegians via the web, people who shared the same hobbies as her.
– Soon I started learning Norwegian, and I still have it through my academic career. Now I write with one of my friends almost just in Norwegian, and we talk almost daily, she writes.
During a visit to Norway, she met a Norwegian professor who eventually encouraged her to apply for the new funds.
– I have said for years that I would like to work in Norway one day. This award gives me the chance to do it, and I am overwhelmed by the meaning this has for me.
Distributed 90 million
Of the 14 researchers, as many as five will work at the University of Oslo. The rest is distributed in places like Oslo Met, NTNU in Trondheim, SINTEF, Norwegian School of Economics. In total, more than NOK 90 million has been distributed to researchers moving to Norway in 2025 and 2026. The Research Council that distributes the funds and checks that the applications meet the requirements.
The researcher Aftenposten gets in touch with, has received NOK 6 million in funds to continue his work at UiB. This will cover wages and social costs, but also funds for the research: staff, equipment, infrastructure or travel.
Margareth Hagen
Principal, University of Bergen
Margareth Hagen, principal at the University of Bergen, says she is “pleased to be able to welcome skilled researchers through this scheme”.
-I have seen with unrest how the Trump administration has hit the free research in the United States through budget cuts, lists of subjects and themes to be avoided, and weakening national research bodies, says Hagen.
– this is important
Research and Higher Education Minister Sigrun Aasland has also pointed to the research’s conditions in the United States under Trump as an important reason why the scheme came into being.
– It’s an important motivation. Both that and a common European intention to attract good international researchers, she says.
– NOK 300 million is some money. Was it difficult to find funds for this?
– It is a priority within the funds the Research Council has. But we believe this is important, both in light of what the world looks like and to strengthen our research environments.
And at the same time as the English football season is kicked off, it is also high season for something else: Political play. Aasland is honest that the Labor Party often boasts a little extra of this scheme now before the election.
– Now we are in the middle of an election campaign, she says.
