Strengths and weaknesses
In connection with the development of the HR Strategy for Researchers, a gap analysis has been conducted. The gap analysis provides an overview of areas that can be both strengthened and developed to achieve the aforementioned priorities. It is at the core of our narrative of strenghts and weaknesses in current practice within the four thematic areas. The narrative points to actions in the action plan that is furter described under actions.
Ethical and professional aspects
UiT’s ambition is to develop leading academic environments at the international forefront, to practice open science, and to contribute to developing innovative and democratic solutions to societal challenges through co-creation and collaborations across disciplines and sectors. To meet our goals in a new financial and geopolitical reality, with fewer students and swift technological developments, the university must strengthen its adaptability and competitiveness. In the future, more of our research will have to be financed from external sources. This will put an increased responsibility on our researchers to manage more research projects, and the gap analysis reveals that researchers at all levels experience that they lack necessary overview over their project economy. Our presence on different campuses and places of study also poses specific challenges: The gap analysis reveals that many senior researchers experience a lack of the necessary administrative support in research project management, and that the existing administrative support could be more evenly available across campuses.
Strategic priority – Promoting open science and reseach integrity
UiT has actively promoted open science for decades, and we are in the forefront of Open Science. Our proportion of open access publications is over 95 %, and we’re continuously working to ensure academic freedom and research integrity at the University. Although UiT offers training and has guidelines and information on research ethics available for researchers, the gap analysis for 2024 shows that UiT lacks an institutional standard for research integrity. To strengthen the reliability of the research performed at UiT, UiT will establish an institutional Code of Conduct for Research Ethics and disseminate this to researchers at all career stages (Action 36). To make sure that our scholars adhere to international standards for co-authorship, these will be included in the code of conduct and will be used in obligatory training for scientific supervision.
Strategic priority – Promote co-creation and innovation
UiT has established an action plan for innovation and entrepreneurship towards 2030 to facilitate co-creation, broad use of knowledge, establishment of startups and use of patents. UiT offers innovation funds and stipends to employees to develop ideas that show great potential through the scheme UiT Talent, and the results so far show that these measures have greatly increased our competitiveness. In implementing the action plan, UiT will closely monitor the results and adjust the measures accordingly (action 28).
Strategic priory – Strengthen Competitiveness
By 2030, UiT aim to increase the share of external financing to 25 % (from 17,3 % in 2024). To meet this goal, we must increase our researchers’ competitiveness and the number and success rate of applications for external funding, and we need to ensure a fairer availability of the administrative services, regardless of UiT’s different geographical locations. Therefore, we will develop connected administrative services, including the services connected to external funding acquisition, and develop a step-by-step guide for research project administration and management (action 37) and develop a user-friendly system for financial overviews and reports (action 38), to ensure that researchers adhere to the principles of sound, transparent and efficient financial management.
Recruitment and selection
UiT’s long-term priority to develop the recruitment policy in line with the EU's Charter & Code aims to successfully recruit talented researchers. To meet our goals in a new financial and demographic reality, with fewer students and increased competition to hire research talents, the university will need to strengthen its ability to attract and attain scientific staff. Our institutional strategy calls for a comprehensive recruitment policy that involves the entire recruitment process. The previous recruitment measures in the action plan have focused on building good infrastructure for recruitment in the form of routines, training, shared services, as well as updating our OTM-R and HR policies. The 2024 gap analysis reveals that numerus improvements have been made, but it also points to the fact that we have not been sufficiently successful in communicating policies and measures so that all units and campuses can implement them. With the updated HR policy being effective as of 2025 our recruitment practises shall be targeted with an emphasis on recruiting the best qualified candidate through staff plans, competence profiles, candidate searches, and proper assessment processes.
Strategic Priority - Recruiting Talents
A clear strength is the university’s OTM-R policy and updated HR policy that secures an open, transparent and merit-based recruitment. UiT is committed to basing appointments in academic position on a broad range of variables beyond purely quantitative publication metrics. Based on the NOR-CAM (Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix) UiT has developed UiT-CAM as an institutional framework that is currently being implemented in the revised supplementary provisions for appointment and promotion to teaching and research positions (action 39). Lessons learned from previous measures is that support and knowledge in this area must be tailored and accessible to all levels, units, and campuses.
Strategic priority – Strengthen competitiveness
UiT’s current institutional strategy states that we will demonstrate adaptability and seek good and purposeful utilisation of resources, so we are ready to meet the expectations and opportunities of the future. Faculties are obliged to have long-term plans to secure academic competence in the future. However, there is identified a need for a framework or system for long term planning of staff (preparatory work in the recruitment process) that includes tools for analysing the status and the future needs for competence as well as training the management to perform good staff planning (action 40).
To maintain breadth in research and education across multiple campuses and study locations, UiT must excel in the competition for research talent. The updated HR policy emphasizes the university´s ambition to be an attractive employer with competitive conditions, infrastructure, and working environments for its staff. This can be better emphasised to attract researchers to UiT. Therefore, we aim to establish a long-term plan to build the university's reputation as a good workplace for researchers (action 41). This includes highlighting onboarding services and the career development opportunities when announcing research positions. The internationalisation of the workforce also necessitates tailored inbound mobility support, language training, and the provision of information for employees about their work situation (across all areas). The visibility of such services is important to attract and retain talents from abroad.
Working conditions
In accordance with UiT´s institutional strategy the university will reach its strategic goals through developing and retaining talents. According to the updated HR policy the university will prioritise inclusive reception of new researchers, safe and including working conditions and systematic career development. Important achievements to improve working conditions are the targeted work on reducing the proportion of temporary employment among researchers (21.6–9.7 from 2019-2024) and the systematic work to reach gender balance in professor positions. In 2024 the share of female staff among professors were 47.2%. This figure places UiT in the lead among comprehensive research universities in Norway. UiT is committed to assist researchers and talents to circulate and collaborate across borders, sectors and disciplines as laid out in the Declaration of commitment by the members of the EURAXESS network.Approximately 25 % of our researchers hold a foreign citizenship and a full-time administrative position is dedicated to inbound mobility. The services offered are announced on the staff mobility web site and well appreciated. Our presence on different campuses and places of study poses some specific challenges: The gap analysis reveals that although UiT offer researchers good working conditions the HR services and career development support are not easily accessible to all researchers.
Strategic priority – Developing and retaining talents
To close the identified gaps UiT will develop streamlined administrative services that are equally distributed across campuses and places of study. The overall goal is to be one administration that has high adaptability and builds digital, sustainable and coherent services. To achieve this, UiT will improve the administrative services by developing connected services in HR (including onboarding services) and career and competence development (action 43). A new online HR handbook in the Norwegian and English language was launched in February 2025. UiT will continue to make information to researchers more easily available on dedicated websites and further develop the online HR handbook (action 43).
The gap analysis reveals that UiT has a limited number of rental properties for new employees, and the number of housing applicants is greater than access to dwellings on all campuses. Norwegian courses are obligatory but primarily held in Tromsø. Further, there is no assistance to partners of international researchers in job seeking. To fill these gaps UiT will investigate possible ways to meet the demand for accommodation for new employees, launch more flexible and digital Norwegian courses that will be available to employees on all campuses. Partners of international employees will be given access to Norwegian courses, workshops on Norwegian society and work culture, and information on existing job seeking assistance (action 44).
UiT recognises that predictable employment conditions are crucial for retaining researchers and developing their careers. In line with the updated HR policy and the supplementary provisions for appointment and promotion in teaching and research positions all positions that exceed two-year durations (except PhD and postdoctoral positions) will be announced as permanent positions and we will continue to reduce the scope of temporary positions, even under external funding.
UiT recognizes that diversity among researchers and in scientific perspectives is the foundation for developing leading academic environments. Although the work on gender balance has come far at UiT, this work needs to be followed up relentlessly and on long-term in all levels, faculties and localities, as anchored in UiT’s action plan for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) 2024-2026.
Training and development
UiT’s staff is our most important resource, and a condition for success in all our goals is that everyone gets to develop their potential. Diversity in backgrounds, competencies, and careers is a driving force and resource in all our endeavours. To develop their potential, researchers benefit from counselling, effective mentorship and supervision, and international mobility.
The updated HR policy states that all researchers and their immediate supervisor/ leader are obliged to perform annual performance and development reviews based on the individual researcher’s career plan, but the feedback from researchers, through the gap analysis, is this is not consistently applied and that we need to do more. To make sure that early career researchers are well integrated and followed up academically, UiT has implemented obligatory courses in research supervision for all supervisors, and all incoming researchers are assigned to a research group. However, an increasing amount of PhD candidates will have careers outside of academia, and training and career counselling should prepare them for this, beyond our current course offer in transversal skills through High North Academy.
Increasing competition for talent is driving internationalization and mobility. The gap analysis indicates that researchers find UiT’s scheme for sabbatical leave attractive and competitive. However, our researchers request more information on the possibility of funding for stays abroad, and more predictability and regularity in the announcement of the existing calls.
Strategic priority – Developing and retaining talents
To reward and merit a diversity of competencies and experiences, as a strength for UiT and mandated as a DORA and ARRA signatory, UiT is committed to basing appointments and promotions in academic position on a broad range of variables beyond purely quantitative publication metrics. Based on th NOR-CAM (Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix), UiT has developed and implemented UiT-CAM as an institutional framework.
Although routines for annual Performance and development reviews have been implemented from 2020, the gap analysis indicates that only 60% had had such review meetings in 2023. As of 2025, department leaders will carry out Performance and development reviews with their employees. Career plans act as a working document in the individual researcher’s performance and development review meetings (action 30). These measures will help researchers fulfil their potential. To meet early career researchers’ demand for career counselling, also for careers outside of academia, UiT will pilot a scheme for career counselling for all PhD candidates starting in 2026 (action 30). The pilot will be evaluated before implementing the scheme also for post-doctoral candidates.
To ensure fair access to mobility funding and that more employees apply for such funding, UiT will make this information more available and streamline the calls (action 43).