Sector pushes back against Norway local language learning rule

Sector leaders in Norway have warned against proposed regulations that would require international academic staff, PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows to learn Norwegian, cautioning that the measures could reduce the country’s appeal to international researchers.

The newly adopted Universities and Colleges Act, which will come into force in August, stipulates that institutions must “use, develop and strengthen” Norwegian as an academic language, while teaching must be in Norwegian or Sami unless “professionally justified”.

More stringent measures, set out in an action plan last year, are currently open for consultation. The proposed regulations would mandate that international research and teaching staff reach a B2 level of Norwegian proficiency, based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), within three years of taking up their role.

PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows from overseas, meanwhile, would be required to study Norwegian, completing the equivalent of 15 course credits.

Ingvild Bergom Lunde, president of the Association of Doctoral Organisations in Norway (SiN), said that PhD researchers were already overburdened, pointing to a 2022 study by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills that found only 15 per cent of candidates between 2010 and 2016 had completed their PhD within the standard three years.

Introducing extra requirements for international researchers, Dr Lunde said, would constitute “discriminatory treatment that goes against an inclusive working environment”.

“In the worst-case scenario, Norway is in danger of not being chosen as a country by young researchers, and could lose significant research talent,” she said.

Jon Wikene Iddeng, a special adviser at the Norwegian Association of Researchers (NAR), said his organisation considered it “vital for the working environment, Norwegian education and a knowledge-based democracy that academics employed at Norwegian universities have a command of the Norwegian language”. Without increased government support, however, institutions would lack “the resource and capacity” to provide language classes to employees, he said; the proposed regulations would thus entail “an incitement to recruit more academics from Norway and Scandinavia”.

Other sector leaders suggested the government’s insistence on the use of Norwegian was out of step with the reality of academia. Sunniva Whittaker, rector of the University of Agder, said that while universities have a “responsibility to preserve and develop Norwegian and Sami as academic languages”, the use of English was necessary for researchers to take part in the global academic community. 

“Our Norwegian students need to learn academic English in order to have access to international research articles,” she said.

Karina Rose Mahan, leader of the language practices in education research group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), shared similar sentiments, telling Times Higher Education: “When you apply for a grant, you usually write it in English. If you publish in English, you get way more views.”

“It would be a great loss if Norwegian disappeared as an academic language, and I do think that a lot of researchers undervalue it,” Dr Mahan said. “Having access to research that you understand in your native tongue is very important.”

Nevertheless, she continued, “academia is built around English as a lingua franca. It’s really hard to counteract that.”

To ensure the continued development of the Norwegian academic language, Dr Lunde suggested, the government could better facilitate language study without mandating it. “We know that most international researchers want to learn Norwegian, and we encourage this,” she said. “[We are] cheering for the regulations to be changed from requirement to right to language training.”

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com