The Research Council of Norway is evaluating the research being done in the humanities these days, and all institutions were given the task to submit cases of how societal impact. Obviously, basic research is per definition not aiming at societal impact in the short run, and my research definitely falls into category.Still it is interesting to see that some of my basic research is, indeed, on the verge of making a societal impact in the sense that policy makers like to think about.

I participated in the opening of the Guild of Research Universities in Brussels yesterday. The Guild is a transformative network of research-led universities from across the European continent, formed to strengthen the voice of universities in Europe, and to lead the way through new forms of collaboration in research, innovation and education. The topic of the opening symposium is that of Open Innovation, a hot topic these days, and something that the European Commission is putting a lot of pressure on.

{.alignright .size-medium .wp-image-2449 width=“228” height=“300”}I have for several years been collaborating with researchers at NTNU in Trondheim on developing video analysis tools for studying the movement patterns of infants. This has resulted in several papers, international testing (and a TV documentary). Now there is a new paper out, with some very successful data testing the reliability of the video analysis method: Reference: Valle, Susanne Collier, Ragnhild Støen, Rannei Sæther, Alexander Refsum Jensenius, and Lars Adde.