Professions, legitimacy and evidence in transforming health and welfare organizations

In 2011 the interfaculty research programme Care, health and welfare launched a project on Professions, knowledge and users in transformation in the Nordic welfare states. Funded by internal strategic means it involves researchers from different faculties of Oslo and Akershus University College (OAUC), as well as a researcher from the Metropolitan University College, Denmark. Through field observations and in-depth interviews the project aims at investigating interactions between professional service work ers and users. Three welfare service professions, social workers, nurses and physiotherapists, are selected to study how these groups interact with users undergoing different stages of medical/vocational rehabilitation. With a particular focus upon the f orms of knowledge which is actualized and regarded as valid, the study aims at uncovering mechanisms in the interaction that may favor/disfavor certain users in terms of the outcomes of service provisions. To strengthen the research team, we wish to bri ng in Professor Jaber Gubrium from Missouri-Columbia. With Professor Gubrium in residence on a 12 months Leiv Eiriksson stay, the project will benefit strongly from his expertise in the everyday practice in health and social service institutions, in organ izational intertextuality, and qualitative data analysis. The objective of arranging this stay is to facilitate a substantial knowledge transfer of high relevance not only to the research project, but to postgraduate research training in this field at the host institution. This year OUAC launched a PhD programme in Social Work and Social Policy, and an application for setting up a programme in Health and Society is at the moment being evaluated by a scientific committee under the auspices of the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education. A final objective of arranging a guest researcher stay with Professor Gubrium is to strengthen international collaboration, both with US and European partner institution