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Mandate


Issued by the Ministry of Education, revised on 24 August 2007:

RENATE - The National Centre for Science Recruitment reports to the Ministry of Education, Universities and College Division in terms of all academic questions. The Centre is organized as a separate unit associated with NTNU, in accordance with § 1-4 of the Act on Universities and Colleges.

In cooperation with business partners and educational institutions, the Centre shall help to strengthen the position of math, science and technology subjects (MNT subjects) in society at large. Its work will be focused on creating measures to improve the recruitment of students to MST studies in both the short and long term. The Centre will specifically work to increase the proportion of women in MNT-oriented studies and professions.

The Centre's primary mission is to contribute to recruitment to the relevant programmes and to increase the proportion of women in these areas. The Centre will help to increase direct contact between the workplace and the education sector at the central and regional level. These cooperative efforts should be action-oriented and have as their ultimate goal to meet community and social needs for MST skills in the short and long term. The Centre aims to collect and share experience between players and to ensure the dissemination of information about the importance of MST subjects to society and our overall prosperity. Youth in the educational system are the primary audience for the Centre's activities.

The Ministry of Education’s Strategy for Strengthening Science forms the basis for the Centre's activities.

Specifics
1. The Centre will be a national centre of excellence for contact between the world of employment and the whole education sector from primary to higher education.

The Centre will:

  • Build a contact network of resource people in schools, higher education and the business community in order to address workplace needs, to assist schools and educational institutions with expertise and contribute to the development and better coordination of recruiting efforts.
  • Collaborate closely with education authorities, educational institutions and industry to improve the coordination of informational activities aimed at schools and students and youths and adults who are applying to educational programmes in general.
  • Develop a regional information network with the participation of educational institutions and the business community to inform and motivate students to choose study options in mathematics, science and technology and the careers to which these programmes lead. There should be a particular focus on linking female role models with those networks.
  • Seek to build "best practices" expertise and provide advice to institutions and the business community regarding which measures work best and which ones do not.
  • Take responsibility for ensuring that an annual national conference on MNT subjects and recruitment issues is held in collaboration with other institutions, organizations and businesses.
  • Provide input on and evaluate possible joint initiatives with activities organized by the Forum for Skills and Employment. This will be achieved through the Forum Secretariat organized as a part of Voksenopplæringsinstituttet (VOX), the Norwegian Agency for Lifelong Learning.

    2. The Centre will strive to develop and disseminate relevant information to students, counsellors and parents on the Web and by participation in education fairs, adviser meetings and the like.

    As part of this work, the Centre will ensure the necessary updating of relevant sites that provide advice on study options and future career choices and advice on various recruitment-promoting activities.

    3. The Centre will serve as a common meeting place and constitute a national "umbrella" of measures taken to strengthen the position of MST subjects in society.

    This coordination will contribute to improved access to resources for recruitment in general, along with good resource use and visibility.

    4. The Centre will be able to coordinate actions and activities to improve recruitment for particularly vulnerable MST studies.

    Over time, there may be a need for extraordinary measures to improve recruitment for special studies to meet the needs of the workplace. The Centre will be able to implement such measures in consultation with the ministry or at the request of the business community.

    5. The Centre's collaborative relationships and delimitations

    The Centre will facilitate increased cooperation between the workplace and education. To achieve good overall solutions, the Centre will collaborate with other governmental bodies dealing with related issues. The key in this respect will be the National Centre for Mathematics in Education, the National Centre for Science in Education, the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, the Research Council of Norway and VOX. This cooperation will also help to avoid overlap and duplication.

    The Centre shall, in cooperation with the other centres, assume a role as both a prime mover and a developer in academic matters, but shall not be responsible for the administration of purely academic activities.

    6. The Centre's gender equality perspective
    In most MNT-relevant studies and careers, women are strongly underrepresented. Therefore, in all its operations, the Centre will ensure that gender equality is a fundamental part of its basic operational perspective, and will take steps to achieve a higher degree of equality between the sexes.