News archive

Visit from Australia and New Zealand

The Faculty of Health Sciences and the Centre for Sami Health Research, UiT The Arctic University of Norway invited researchers from the University of Melbourne, Australia and the University of Auckland, New Zealand to a meeting and workshop in Tromsø. The purpose of the meeting was to follow up the intention with our Memorandum of Understanding to establish shared projects within indigenous research, development and education. The workshop aimed to explore possible areas of collaboration based on ongoing research and teaching activities.

Several potential approaches for collaboration between Australia, New Zealand and Norway were discussed during the two days in May 2019. Regarding education, focus was on the efforts to introduce indigenous perspectives in health- and social worker programs. The SAMINOR Study gives a unique possibility to focus on the indigenous health situation in Norway, both through clinical and questionnaire data, in addition to blood samples. The SAMINOR Study may also be linked to national registers. In Melbourne, Australia, several clinical and register studies concerning chronical lifestyle diseases are ongoing. In Australia and New Zealand, ethnicity is included in the national registries, which makes it possible to follow the aboriginal population’s health situation over time.

The first research co-operation project is already in the start and we look forward to further collaboration with our colleagues from “Down under”.