After several decades holding key positions in Norwegian research policy Dr Kveseth has moved to China where she is Norway’s first Counsellor for Science and Higher Education. The positive lady has taken on her new role with enthusiasm and respect for the many tasks awaiting her.
As Counsellor of Science and Higher Education in Beijing, Dr Kveseth provides assistance to Norwegian research groups seeking to cooperate with Chinese research counterparts. Another task is to create exchange collaborations between Chinese and Norwegian educational institutions.
According to Mrs Kveseth, the whole world is “looking towards China, and Norway is competing with research groups from a wide range of countries.” Through understanding and dialogue the new Counsellor hopes to increase the fruitful science collaborations between China and Norway.
She has followed developments in China in relation to science closely for many years through her role as International Director at the Research Council. Personally she has been given a unique access to the Chinese society through her son who married a Chinese lady and is living in Beijing with his wife and their child.
The grandmother has been deeply involved in the development of Norwegian research policy over the past 30 years. In 1979 she finished her Ph.D. in Chemistry. Afterwards she became a doctorate and obtained a research position at the University of Oslo and the Centre for Industrial Research (SINTEF). Dr Kveseth enjoyed her work as a scientist, but was gradually drawn into administration and organisation research. For this reason she began working for the Research Council of Norway, where she worked for almost 20 years before moving to Beijing.
“International cooperation is becoming more and more important for what we do at the national level,” she explains. One of the challenges of being a Norwegian Counsellor of Science and Higher Education in China is the high number of Chinese researchers, (almost 1.4 milion) compared to the small scale of researchers in Norway.
