Petroleum Research School of Norway

Petroleum Research School of Norway, Nasjonal forskerskole i petroleumsfag (NFiP), was established in 2010 to improve the PhD education within petroleum related sciences at all universities in Norway. More than 1600 students (PhD and MSc students) from 15 countries have participated in NFiP activities in total. Thus, the average annual participation is more than 200 students participating in NFiP activities. More than 50 courses, conferences and seminars have been provided by NFiP. NFiP has an extensive international scientific network, more than 300 international students have participated in NFiP’s activities with more than 50 international student exchanges. NFiP has signed MoUs with 13 reputational universities in Europe, Asia and in the USA. Members of NFiP include University of Bergen (UiB), University of Stavanger (UiS), University of Oslo (UiO), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), University of Tromsø (UiT), and the University Center at Svalbard (UNIS). Based on financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and industrial funding from the petroleum industry, NFiP was established with the objective to provide a national tool to coordinate and improve the PhD education within petroleum related sciences in Norway. In 2016, NFiP obtained financial support from The Research Council of Norway (RNC) amounting to NOK 23mill for the next 8 years. This support enabled NFiP to continue and expand the educational efforts despite challenges to obtain industrial funding after the financial recession in 2016. Since 2015, the focus of NFiP has been to contribute to the energy transition. All NFiP annual seminars at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum in Stavanger have emphasized how to mitigate climate change within the petroleum industry. NFiP has also provided 4 international conferences in Houston, TX, USA, on how to improve CCUS with the title: “CO2 EOR as CCUS”. NFiP also provided two Whole Value Chain CCUS Conference Weeks in Golden, CO, USA in 2018 and 2022, respectively. The pandemic in 2020-2021 initiated digital activities including an on-line CCUS course, digital rhetoric course, and a digital field excursion on Svalbard. More than 200 petroleum engineers and over 200 PhD- og Master students from all universities in Norway, and from NFiP’s NORAD collaboration in South America have attended in the on-line CCUS course. Additionally, a national course in Drill String Dynamics has been added to the NFiP portfolio as a collaboration between NTNU and UiS. Adhering to the new transparency strategy of the Research Council of Norway, NFiP strongly supports open-access of scientific contributions to the public at large. Thus, current, and previous scientific presentations related to NFiP activities are freely available at https://nfip.no/ under the specific course/seminar. For more information, please see https://nfip.no/ .

PhD utdanningen i petroleumsrelaterte fag er forbedret med hensyn til kvalitet og koordinering mellom universitetene, det er etablert mer internasjonalt samarbeid, bedre industrikontakt og spesielt gitt mer oppdatert informasjon om energiomstilling i petroleumssektoren. Mer enn 1600 studenter fra 15 land i Europa, Asia og Amerika har deltatt i NFiP's aktiviteter, se web-siden www.nfip.no. NFiP har etablert 13 MoU-avtaler med samarbeidsuniversiteter i Europa, Asia og Nord- og Sør-Amerika. Mer enn 300 utenlandske studenter har deltatt i NFiP sine aktiviteter og mer enn 50 internasjonale studentutvekslinger er gjennomført. Mer enn 50 kurs, seminarer og konferanser er arrangert av NFiP. Nye revolusjonerende teknologier er utviklet og formidlet innen CCUS for å oppnå redusert karbonavtrykk i olje- og gass produksjon. Teknologiene er blitt formidlet til mer enn 200 oljeingeniører, til alle MSc- og PhD studenter utdannet i perioden 2015-2023 og ved at finansiell støtte har gitt muligheter for deltagelse i internasjonale konferanser, seminarer og i internasjonale forskningsprosjekter. Neste generasjons energi-ingeniører er derfor utdannet med kunnskap og bedre kompetanse om hvordan klimaendringer kan motvirkes i petroleumssektoren.

Petroleum Research School of Norway/Nasjonal forskerskole i petroleumsfag (NFiP): PhD education in petroleum related sciences at universities in Norway will improve and be more efficient by coordinated interdisciplinary collaboration between the universities graduating these PhDs. Petroleum Research School of Norway, including as active collaborating participants all five major universities in Norway, was therefore established March 10th, 2010. NFiP has so far exclusively been funded by industry; OED provided a one year starting grant. NFiP offers opportunities for the PhD students admitted at the participating universities in Norway, to receive coordinated teaching, intensive courses, participate in international, interdisciplinary collaborative research projects utilizing the networks of all universities in Norway. They are also being offered meeting places and discussion forums that include their supervisors. The NFiP Executive Board consists of two representatives from each of the five collaborating universities. An important objective of the research school is to provide more candidates to the petroleum industry by securing sufficient recruitment to the PhD studies in the petroleum related sciences and to secure that all PhDs have access to the best and most reputational research groups. A secondary objective is to improve the expertise within upstream petroleum activities in Norway. NFiP has contributed to improve petroleum education, scientifically improved petroleum technology and provided more values for the society and the 474 participating PhDs. NFiP covers all petroleum related disciplines, but is limited to upstream activities, including exploration, recovery mechanisms and CO2 storage for more sustainable upstream petroleum activities. All universities with PhD graduation in petroleum related fields are members of the school; i.e. UiO, UiS, UiB, NTNU and UiT; also UNIS is part of the research school; see www.NFiPweb.org for more info on partners.