Although the University of Oslo was given specifically ear–marked funding for 568 doctoral fellowships, 108 of these positions continue vacant as per 1 October last year. University rector Arild Underdal reports that many institutes have postponed appointments in order to save money. He says that if the institutes and faculties fail to ensure that they fill the available positions, the Board of the University may have to consider a more centralized management of new appointments, with unused positions being re–distributed among other faculties.

The Ministry of Education and Research has observed that institutes that fail to fill the positions financed from the national budget cannot expect to retain these ear–marked funds. Bjørn Haugstad of the Ministry adds that doctoral fellows are known to be highly efficient employees, who produce a lot of research. Failing to utilize the ear–marked money strikes him as poor economy.

40 of 63 students on the INTER1000 course obtained As or Bs in their exams. With a mere three Ds the course students’ grades is far from the Gaussian distribution, which was the stated objective when the new grades were introduced. Rector Arild Underdal has explained this unusually good performance with the stringent admission requirements for the course in question. Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences,
Asbjørn Rødseth, says that he did not expect to achieve a Gaussian distribution on a single course, much less so over the course of a single semester