MED-nytt, no. 13 – 2022

Editorial: Welcome to the new semester

The dean wishes all staff and students his best wishes for the new semester. Dean Ivar P. Gladhaug gives us an overview of the main issues this autumn.

Read the full Editorial.

The Life Science Growth House is taking over the School of Health Innovation

Since the start in 2016, more than 350 young health science researchers have received training in health innovation through the School of Health Innovation. From 1 June, the Life Science Growth House took over the operation of the School of Health Innovation. Innovation director Hilde Nebb will continue to have academic responsibility on behalf of UiO, while Bjarte Reve will continue as project manager on behalf of UiO.

A proponent of data sharing receives the King's Gold Medal

Better procedures for collecting and sharing research data can help us get more out of brain research, wrote Ingvild Elise Bjerke in her thesis. Now she will receive the King's Gold Medal. Read the entire article on IMB's website (Norwegian).

Studies

Studies and admission requirements 2022

The numbers from the main admission to undergraduate studies were published on 25 July and all students have received answers regarding their acceptance. Certain study programmes now have higher grade requirements, but the increase is not as strong as last year. Read the full article (Norwegian).

You can also read Uniforum's Norwegian articles the applicant numbers for UiO and More people than ever were accepted to their first choice.

New Master's Programme in Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology

The pandemic has shown the need. A master's degree programme in epidemiology will now be available in Norway for the first time. You can also specialize in public health work and sustainable health services (Norwegian).

The pandemic created a natural experiment situation for researchers

The debate has raged on whether digital teaching and digital exams have been an advantage or a disadvantage for medical students. A new study that the COVID pandemic created is coming soon. Read the full article (Norwegian).

Information for employees

• Election to the MED Faculty:
  Election of Dean and election of new representatives to the Faculty Board in all constituencies.
  • The Election Board for the 2022-2025 period.
  • The Election Committee for the election of a new Dean in 2022. 
  • The deadline for putting candidates forward for election as Dean expires at 12 noon on Monday 15 August. Candidates must be nominated using Nettskjema: Read more about the process for the 2022 election of the Dean. 
  • Dates for your diary: A general meeting with election debate on 5 September, 14:00-16:00, in the large auditorium at Oslo University Hospital (Rikshospitalet). It will also be possible to participate on Zoom, and there will be an opportunity to ask the candidates questions.
• Our SFI, Center for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE) has now also received its Norwegian name: “Senter for bærekraft i helseutdanningene” (SHE).
• The postdoctoral programme’s excellent career development course will start already on 1 September and has places available! It is still possible to apply for a place. You won’t regret it! The participants usually benefit a great deal from the course.
• The School of Health Innovation is now part of the Life Science Growth House. Since the start in 2016, more than 350 young health science researchers have received training in health innovation through the School of Health Innovation. From 1 June, the Life Science Growth House took over the operation of the School of Health Innovation at the University of Oslo.
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  • Exercise during working hours: This autumn's training offer is ready! All employees can work out up to 1.5 hours a week. Take advantage of this autumn's training offer: indoor bandy, yoga and neck/shoulders are some of the activities you can choose.
• University of Oslo: New study options for refugees: UiO has established several study programmes for refugees. Potential students can also take Norwegian courses, both digitally and physically.
• The war in Ukraine
  • Ukraine – University of Oslo
  • UiO: Relevant points of contact for affected students and staff.
• The Rector’s blog: An increasingly visible Circle U at UiO (Norwegian)
• Uniforum: UiO is in nineteenth place in Europe among the most visible universities online (Norwegian). In the Nordic region, only the University of Copenhagen and the University of Helsinki have better and greater access to research articles and other academic writings online than UiO. NTNU is ranked 108.
• UMED: Courses being held by the Library of Medicine and Science during the autumn of 2022 (Norwegian).
• Uniforum: The prosecution is appealing the verdict against Macchiarini (Norwegian). The surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was reported by four colleagues at the Karolinska Institutet in 2014 for falsifying research results
• Uniforum: Svein Stølen: – We will require Norwegian names on the Norwegian websites (Norwegian).

Management meetings

Minutes from the Management Forum on 21 June (Norwegian): Diversity report – Universal design – Academic anchoring of research applications – BookitLab – Study cases – Research cases – News from the departments  Current prices.

Minutes from the Faculty Board Meeting on 14 June (Norwegian)

University Board Meetings in 2022 (Norwegian).  Last meeting on June 21. Upcoming meetings, 6 and 7 September.

Deadlines

• See all the important deadlines for applications for research funding under Funding opportunities.
• Award announcements: Keep up-to-date with the award announcements, which are updated on an ongoing basis.
  • The deadline for nominations for the Heart Research Prize 2022 is 30 August.
• The faculty is investing in MSCA postdoctoral fellowships with an application deadline of 14 September. Separate application support material has been developed and interested academic supervisors and researchers can contact our research advisors at EEF for further information.
• ERC Starting Grant: The European Research Council (ERC) will soon launch the 2023 Starting Grant call. Deadline 25 October 2023.
• ERC Consolidator Grant: The European Research Council (ERC) has announced the deadline for the 2023 Consolidator Grant. Deadline 2 February 2023.
• ERC Synergy Grant: The ERC Synergy Grant (SyG) is for 2 - 4 PIs and their teams bringing together complementary skills in order to jointly address ambitious research problems in any field of research. Deadline: 8 November 2022.

Courses and events

See the University of Oslo’s calendar for an overview of all available courses. See also courses from USIT.
Updated overview: Upcoming public defences

• Post-doctoral programme. Sign up for a course now! The postdoctoral programme is a career development programme for postdoctoral fellows and other researchers in the establishment phase. We are offering two management courses, one about career development (NB: the start-up date is 1 September. Places available! It is still possible to apply.) and one about management and academic supervision. We are also offering courses in application writing and research communication, as well as a mentoring scheme. All of the courses consistently receive very good evaluations from the participants. Information about the courses and links for registration.
• Research course starting on 22 August: MF9185 – Critical perspectives on health and disease. The course focuses on basic concepts in the health services with regard to different perspectives, ways of generating knowledge about health and disease, and ethical aspects.
• Get advice on universal design of digital content. UiO's ICT solutions must be accessible to everyone. New information pages have now been launched that provide guidance for those who create content or are responsible for a digital service. Get an overview and, if you wish, you can sign up for the webinar (Norwegian).
• Courses being held by the Library of Medicine and Science during the autumn of 2022. UB offers courses on searching for literature in PubMed, Web of Science and other academic databases, critical assessment of articles, reference management, open access (OA) publishing and researcher profiling. Read more about the courses and sign up (Norwegian).
• Arendalsuka (Arendal Week) 18 August, 14:00-15:00 at Clarion Hotel Tyholmen, Lille Torungen. One health, one globe – and only one chance? (Norwegian) Good health for people, animals and the planet is essential to achieving the sustainable development goals. One Health is a rapidly growing international, interdisciplinary strategy that recognizes that human and animal health are connected to each other and to the environment. The organizer is our Centre for Global Health, in collaboration with: The Life Science Cluster, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the Norwegian University of Environmental and Natural Sciences – NMBU. Refer also to the information about the event on Helsam's website.
• Arendalsuka (Arendal Week) 18 August 16:30-18:00. The Life Science Growth House, the University of Oslo, the Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Norway (LMI), Oslo Science City and Innovation Norway invite you to a discussion at Clarion Hotel Tyholmen: From research to production – Norway as a home for the healthcare industry. The potential for value creation in the health sector has received increased attention in Norway and reports over the past five years point to significant growth. We are bringing together stakeholders from the various links in the health sector’s value chain to discuss how to derive even more potential for value creation from this sector.
• 23 August NCMM Tuesday Seminar: Thomas Arnesen. NCMM Associate Investigator Professor Thomas Arnesen, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Bergen and Department of Surgery, Haukeland University Hospital, will present his research as part of the NCMM Tuesday Seminar Series.
• On 26 August, the Centre for Sustainability in Health Education (SHE) will host Approaching AMR as a One Health issue. Are you a researcher or student at the University of Oslo interested in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), interdisciplinarity and One Health? Join this INFRA network seminar in August!
• 2 September Annual Party 2022 (Norwegian). UiO's annual party and birthday will be celebrated in the University's Aula from 18:00 to 19:30. There will be an Annual Party Ceremony in the Aula, with the conferring of honorary doctors, the presentation of prizes and the King's Gold Medal, speeches by the rector, honorary doctors and the head of the Student Parliament, as well as musical performances. Enrolment and photos from last year (Norwegian).
• 2 september Our new honorary doctors will give their traditional lectures in the science academy.

• 5 September, General election meeting.

  Listen to the candidates running for the position of Dean debate between 14:00 and 16:00 in the large auditorium at the University Hospital. We would like to see you at the meeting, but it is also possible to participate on Zoom. Feel free to prepare questions for the candidates in advance.

• 7 September , 17:00-18:00 in the Large auditorium at DM. Open information meeting about UiO Campus South for medical students (Norwegian). In the autumn of 2023, 10 medical students will start their 5th year of study at the newly created UiO Campus South of Sørlandet Hospital. The information meeting is particularly relevant for module 4. There will be presentations about various parts of the study plan and practical matters by: Vice-dean Elin Olaug Rosvold, head of education Knut Lundin and head of education Magnus Løberg.

• 8 September SHE will host the Student Conference (Norwegian). For the first time, a student conference is being organized with a focus on health and sustainability. Everyone is welcome!

• September 8 Welcome to the third Life Science Growth House innovation hangout – a new meeting place for academia and industry. This hangout is a collaboration with The Life Science Cluster. Topic: Competence in and beyond academia.

• Frampeik in Oslo 2022. Frampeik is the annual research conference for medical and dentistry students in Norway. Time and place: 14-16 October.

• 10-11 November National research conference on musculoskeletal health (Norwegian) (The MUSS conference), Hybrid conference (Gardermoen and Zoom)

Research news

You can also follow what is happening at the Faculty of Medicine on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Institute of Clinical Medicine: Early food introduction can prevent food allergies in children by Elin Martine Doeland. Allowing your baby to taste foods containing peanuts, eggs, milk and wheat from the age of three months can reduce the risk of allergies in children.

Institute of Clinical Medicine: High mortality after release from prison, in Norwegian, by Julie Nybakk Kvaal. The security level at which the inmate has served their sentence affects the risk of dying after release. Several preventive measures can help to reduce the risk.
 

The Medicine Blog: Is honey healthier than sugar? In Norwegian, by Emilie Heide. You may have heard that you have to steer clear of white sugar? And that coconut flower sugar, honey and agave syrup are more natural and contain more micronutrients? Is this true?

The Institute of Health and Society on the Cancer Compass (Kreftkompasset) podcast: Kaja Kvaale and Eira Bjørvik share insights from cancer survivors "Cancer survival in new ways – About how people experience and talk about cancer" (CANCUL). Especially from people who have had gastrointestinal cancer and abdominal cancer.

The Medicine Blog: How do we get the best possible health for our money?, In Norwegian, by Tor Iversen. Health services in Norway cost more than NOK 70,000 per inhabitant per year. Which diseases should receive which treatment, where and by whom? Health economics research revolves around these priorities.

Institute of Clinical Medicine: Coffee drinking during pregnancy most likely safe, by Elin Martine Doeland. How many cups of coffee you drink when you are pregnant does not seem to have a negative effect on the weight of the baby or whether it is born prematurely. Neither does it increase the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

The Medicine Blog: Sex, drugs and knowledge production, In Norwegian, by Isa Dussauge and Andrés Lekanger. Now it's Pride. It's a party. There will be some sex. There will be a lot of drunkenness. But in addition to partying, Pride festivals are a queer collective that works together to achieve several common goals, such as the prevention of overdoses.

Institute of Clinical Medicine: People with mild PHPT are unlikely to need surgery In Norwegian, by Elin Martine Doeland
It appears that it is not necessary to operate on patients with the mild variant of the disease PHPT, where blood calcium levels are only slightly elevated.

NSSF: DBT therapy: – There is a good reason why we ask patients to endure their feelings, In Norwegian, by Silje Pileberg. Learning to manage your feelings is one of the key aspects to having a life worth living, according to DBT therapist Christine Dunkley.

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