As a university, we are very much affected by, and in fact play a key role when society is faced with challenges such as these, as we delve into generating new theories and tools to solve problems and overcome threats to our population, and indeed, to the planet as a whole. This has been part of the university’s mission since its very beginnings and we continue firmly in this trajectory today.
The Faculties of Theology, Humanities and Social Sciences are very much part of this trajectory, as these kinds of issues are exceedingly complex and require analyses reaching far beyond the natural sciences and medicine, stressing the absolute necessity of interdisciplinary cooperation across our campus and internationally.
Ability to cooperate to reach a greater good
The good news in the midst of all this, as many stand between hope and despair, is precisely the ability of humans to cooperate to reach a greater good, regardless of our disciplinary expertise and other backgrounds. We at the Faculty of Theology are part of this collaborative endeavour and we can, together with others, make a difference if we nurture the skills necessary for such collaboration; in research and when we train our students, in relation to the (historical and contemporary) big questions as well as when we deal with the nuances of every-day life. Our contribution to the university is, indeed, essential to society.
A welcome to our new colleagues
Entering the next decade, our Faculty is now in a period of dynamic change. Looking back, we note with enthusiasm that, as Forskerforum recently reported, compared with a range of other countries, Norway has, over the last 20 years, the highest growth in research. In this context, we are very happy to welcome our latest addition of researchers (Stipendiater) to our academic staff: Naveed Baig, Emil Junge Busch, Sebastian Ekberg, and Natalia Smelova. We are delighted to have been able to recruit such accomplished scholars-in-the-making, and look forward to working with you over the next few years. We are also in the midst of several other hiring processes on the postdoc level as well as tenured positions related to RESA (with over 60 applications by the deadline a couple of weeks ago) and LES.
TF is well-known and recognised internationally
As our recent and ongoing hiring processes show, our Faculty is well-known and recognised internationally as an attractive place to do research and teach. This is very gratifying to see. In terms of TF’s place on the world map we are, as previously reported, in the midst of a process in which we aim to deal more systematically with internationalisation, on all continents, on the institutional level. A committee is working on this and they expect to hand in their report to the Dean by the end of the year. In addition to such more formal efforts, we also note with excitement the great work done by scholars, individuals and teams, at our Faculty, in terms of international initiatives and collaboration. Beyond leading roles in important conference settings and publication projects, we see several events taking place at TF, where invited international scholars present and discuss their research. Such initiatives, bringing important scholarship to TF, is extremely important, and we encourage everyone to continue these efforts, weaving TF even more into the international academic fabric.
A warm thank-you to everyone
With these words, and on behalf of the leadership group, I want to thank everyone for their hard work and the good spirits in which you conduct it, steering a productive course between challenges and insights, problems and solutions. Balance is, after all, of the essence, as the planet is more subtly shaped than a narrative of unceasing disasters allows for. That being so, it is, reasonably, part of our responsibility to address in our research and teaching not only calamities and adversity but also the nuances of that which the Church Fathers called the ‘doxological surplus’; the fine elements of intricate beauty integral to our world, elements which are explored in and across the religious traditions we study.