Norway

I participated in the event WISE x HOUSE OF NORDIC VISIONS at the Nordic Embassies in Berlin yesterday. During the opening speech, Philipp Grefer mentioned various numbers for the size of the cultural and creative industries in Europe. His argument was tht the cultural and creativ industries are often treated as a “soft” policy area. However, economically speaking, they are not soft at all. Here is a blog post summarizing some numbers. ...

I have seen that it is possible to build a complete CV from NVA data, the Norwegian research registry. As part of my quest to collect data of researchers connected to MishMash, I am looking for the best data source(s). Starting with a quick check of my own personal page at UiO, showed that institutional person pages are not the right solution. But what about NVA? Perhaps that is a viable solution? ...

I have previously explored how NotebookLM can generate ERC-style CVs based on publicly available research information. Now, I was curious to see whether it could also make a complete CV following the guidelines of the Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM). The NOR-CAM principles Creating a CV that follows the NOR-CAM principles is less about listing dates and more about telling the story of an academic career through a balance of quantitative data and qualitative reflection. If you are interested in learning more about NOR-CAM, have a look at the full report. Here is a 4-minute video introduction to the system: ...

MishMash was formally opened yesterday with a full-day program featuring a hackathon, research application workshop, work package meetings, industry panel, match-making session, and, finally, the grand opening ceremony in the Aula of the University of Oslo. Research application workshop The day began with a research application workshop held by Thomas de Ridder (UiB) with good support from Siv Haugan and Anette Askedal from the Research Council of Norway (RCN). They gave an overview of different funding opportunities from both RCN and the EU and gave tips on how to write a competitive grant. ...

While part of the group that developed the Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM), I strongly advocated for the development of an “automagic” CV system. This was based on the fact that I (and many other researchers) spend too much time working on formatting our CVs for new templates. All funders have their own CV templates, which often change from year to year. Copying and formatting the same information over and over is (literally) a waste of time, so there is room for improvement. ...

I find Google’s NotebookLM to be one of the most powerful tools for researchers these days. Its core function is to work with the material you upload. Hence, it differs from ChatGPT and other tools that invent things on their own or search the web. It also has many different types of reports, including audio and video. But how accurate is it? Testing NotebookLM To test NotebookLM on some material I know very well, I decided to provide it with a collection of public data about myself, more specifically, what I have registered in the Norwegian NVA system, which is the database we use in Norway to register all our academic activities. This includes academic publications, public lectures, artistic works, interviews, etc. In my case, that contains around 1000 entries dating back to 2000. ...

Yesterday, we learned that MishMash has been funded. Many people are asking about our plans, so here is a quick overview based on those outlined in the application. What? MishMash will be a large Norwegian centre dedicated to exploring the intersection of AI and creativity. Our primary objective is to create, explore, and reflect on AI for, through, and in creative practices. We will investigate AI’s impact on creative processes, develop innovative CoCreative AI systems, and address AI’s ethical, cultural, and societal implications in creative domains. ...

Yesterday, I received a brief phone call from the Research Council of Norway, where I was asked to come to UiO’s University Library today. The very pleasant message was that our bid for a Norwegian AI centre had been selected by the committee: MishMash Centre for AI and Creativity will be a reality! Today’s press release was a high-profile event with both the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, and Minister of Research and Higher Education, Sigrun Aasland, present. ...

Today we submitted the proposal “MishMash - Centre for AI & Creativity” to the Research Council of Norway’s call for Norwegian AI centres. If we get funded, the goal is to create, explore, and reflect on AI for, through, and in creative practices. Preparing this proposal has been a fantastic journey. More than 100 researchers from 16 Norwegian higher education institutions, 4 research institutes, and 3 artistic research centres have partnered with the National Library, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), the National Museum, and several other museums, institutions, organisations, and industry partners both within and outside of Norway. ...

Draft: true I am in Brussels today, at the final meeting I will attend as the Norwegian representative to the European University Association’s Expert Group on Open Science. I have been part of this group for more than six years now, which has been In this blog post, I will reflect on what has happened during the six years and give some advise to those following me in the role. ...