The evaluation report, "Earth Sciences Research in Norway", draws a very positive picture of the Norwegian geosciences, and the Research Council launches it under the heading "Norway – an international leader in many areas of earth science". 13 universities and university colleges, and 12 research institutes have been evaluated - the evaluation has been mandatoty for the universities, voluntary for the research institutes. The process consists of self-evaluation, bibliometric analyses, hearing meetings and institution visits. The report describes the different disciplines on a national basis, and each individual research group. Th groups are graded on a scale from 1 ("weak") to 5 ("excellent") - and the whole scale is used. The committee starts its Executive Summary as follows:
The Evaluation Committee (EC), comprised of leading international experts in a range of Earth Science disciplines, is pleased to report to the Research Council of Norway (RCN) that Earth Science research in Norway is generally in a state of good health. Very few truly weak research areas were observed and in a number of fields, e.g. climate science, meteorology and atmospheric science, marine science, hydrology, physics of geological processes, and sedimentary basin development in the context of petroleum systems, Norway can be considered to be internationally leading.
The groups that have been evaluated at the University of Oslo is the Department of Geosciences (by sections), the geology part of CoE "Physics of Geological Processes" (PGP) and the geology groups at the Museum of Natural History. PGP, atmospheric research and petroleum geology and geophysics see fivers. The Geodynamics group of Trond Torsvik, which is evaluated under the Geological Survey of Norway, also gets top grade. The other groups are not far behind.
We are also happy to see that our close partners in CIENS (met.no, CICERO, NILU and the hydrologists at NVE) and in Bergen (BCCR, the Department of Geophysics and the Department of Earth Sciences) get very good ratings!