As fairly new Deputy Head with responsibility for research, I have the privilege of taking part in and following many processes which are both exciting and partly new to me. Early on previous Monday, the BIO leadership had a dialogue meeting with the faculty, and over the course of ninety minutes we discussed future ambitions, finances, education, research, infrastructure, area use, work environment, and wellbeing. The time passed quickly, and it was clear that the faculty appreciates the work we all do at BIO.
Over the past couple of weeks, it has also been fantastic to both follow the effort put into finalising major Research Council of Norway (NFR) applications and see the successes in the tough competition for external funding. A big congratulations to researcher Andreas Borchel for receiving a FRIPRO grant for the project “Deciphering Nutrient Uptake Mechanisms in Salmon Louse Oocytes for Gene Editing and Treatment Development”! Congratulations also to Vigdis Vandvik, who is a BIO partner in the research network “Network for Open Ecological Data”, coordinated by NINA.
During the past week, BIO colleagues have submitted major applications: Vigdis Vandvik is the lead for the centre application “Centre for Sustainable Nature and Land Management” for Centre for Sustainable Area and Nature Use, a cross-disciplinary project with many partners from academia, the institute sector, and society at large. Christian Jørgensen and Tom Langbehn are leaders for the Centre of Excellence (SFF) application “Centre for Light in the Living Ocean”, with partners from the Institute of Marine Research and other departments at UiB. But it doesn’t stop there: our BIO colleagues are also partners in no fewer than seven SFF applications coordinated by the University Museum of Bergen, the Department of Earth Science, the Sars Centre, UiT, NORCE, the Faculty of Medicine, and NOFIMA. Last but not least, BIO is a partner in three infrastructure applications, coordinated by NOFIMA, the Department of Earth Science, and the Faculty of Medicine.
A huge thank you to everyone who has worked long days, evenings, and weekends to get the science, partners, collaboration agreements, budgets, and more in place – despite all the other ongoing tasks that also need to be done! Also thank you to all those who have stepped in and carried some of these ongoing tasks for those with the highest workload in these big proposal. I hope everyone manages to take a short breather and enjoy the crisp cold weather that the forecasts show is on its way to Bergen.