Early november, it was confirmed that Kristiansand municipality and the regional hospital, in collaboration with the University of Agder, has been granted two doctoral applications by the Research Council of Norway, in the new scheme called “Public Sector PhD”.
– I am very happy that UoA has got two of the first research fellows in the “Public Sector PhD” scheme. They will be working with very relevant and important questions, says Torunn Lauvdal, Rector of the University of Agder, in a press release.
Health Technology
Via this scheme public sector employees can apply for funding for a PhD. They will focus on research issues of interest to the public sector, and the work will hopefully result in the public sector strengthening its services.
The PhD students, Kirsti Askedal and Geir Thore Berge, received two doctoral scholarships, and both of them will do research on health technology. Now that they got their funding, they can fully focus on the PhD work. And we are of course very happy for them 
Does research on efficiency
Kirsti, who is a trained nurse and has a Masters degree in health science, is now employed in Kristiansand municipality. She will do research on the economic and human benefits of efficiency and change initiatives in the municipal health and care sector.
– This is incredibly exciting. I’m looking forward to getting started, says Kirsti in the press release.
Patient Data
Geir Thore is employed at the regional hospital in Kristiansand and is managing the unit dealing with clinical ICT systems. He is a trained nurse and has a Masters degree in Information Systems.
Geir Thore will investigate the structuring of information and patient data in healthcare, and he will also look at how patient records can be structured better.
Centre for eGovernment 