On behalf of the Norwegian Ministry of Research and Higher Education, the Norwegian Research Council and Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education has organised the delegation’s visit to China in April.

The Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education, Ms. Iselin Nybø, made an official visit to Shanghai with more than 100 delegates. The Minister met with representatives from Shanghai municipal Government and leaders in research and education committees and institutions, whereas Fudan University, School of Management was one of the hosts.

Thursday 19th of April the Delegation visited a reception at Fairmont Peace Hotel located at The Bund. Presidents from Norwegian universities and representatives from other partner universities attended the reception, as well representatives from the Norwegian Research Council and the Royal Norwegian Consulate of Norway in Shanghai.

BI Norwegian Business School is the Norwegian university with the longest presence in China, currently in its 22nd year. BI’s President Inge Jan Henjesand was the first of the speakers, followed by the Presidents of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and University of Bergen (UiB). All held speeches underlining the importance of future cooperation regarding research and academic development.

Thomas Hansteen, a Special Advisor in the Norwegian Research Council concluded the speeches. During the following mingling the audience was entertained by several related alumni artists, such as The Grieg Academy from Bergen, Trondheim Soloists from Trondheim as well as our very own BI-Fudan Alumni Choir.

The next day, Friday 20th, parts of the delegation visited Fudan University and the Nordic Centre. The seminar was organised by UiB, Sino/Nordic Welfare Research network (SNoW), Fudan University and the Nordic Centre. The topic was welfare challenges: Chinese and Norwegian Outlooks. Four Professors from UiB, two from Fudan University and one from Zhejiang University presented their key-notes at the Nordic Centre. Both countries are facing several mutual challenges with an aging population and health costs. Smart Innovation within elderly care was mentioned by several of the speakers, welfare governance of both state and non-state actors, as well as sustainable health care provisions and cross-disciplinary welfare research should be pursued.

Also, part of the delegation were invited for a classroom visit to the BI-Fudan MBA Program, class 28. The students talked about their key challenges when it comes to people management in their sector or company, and how the topic is taught in our program. The MBA program “People Management - Creating Value Through People” students discussed how to develop and manage operations, environments and facilities for industries and service companies – areas under constant pressure of improvement – leading to demands for excellent leadership and management of operations and production.