Simula hosts delegation from Lower Saxony

The delegation visited Norway to gain insight into higher education policy, research and teaching in Norway. Simula provided facilities for the talk between Prof Oddmund Løkensgard Hoel, the Norwegian State secretary for research and higher education, and the delegation from Lower Saxony, which included Prof. Dr. Joachim Schachtner (State Secretary for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony), Prof. Dr. Holger Saß (Vice President Research, Third Mission, Gender Equality of the Jade Hochschule), and Prof. Dr. Fabian Schmieder (Vice President for digitalization and IT, University of Hanover).

Situated in northwestern Germany, Lower Saxony has a total of 20 universities located in Lower Saxony with over 200,000 students under state responsibility. Well-known examples such as the Leibniz University of Hanover and the University of Göttingen are the two largest universities in Lower Saxony, each with around 30,000 students. The seven state-run universities of applied sciences specialise in practical research and teaching.

The visit to Simula was a special request from the delegation and Simula also invited two early career researchers, Anastasia Grishina and Steven Hicks, to presentsome of Simula's research within Machine Learning. During their time in Norway, the delegation also visited the University of Oslo.

As part of the discussion at Simula, the Lower Saxony delegation expressed ambitions of more collaboration between their universities and Simula, especially within the field of the “twin transition” (green shift and digitalization) and commercialization of research. Lillian Røstad, Simula's Managing Director commented, “I found the visit from Lower Saxony very interesting and see promising opportunities to instigate more collaboration with Germany in general and Lower Saxony in particular."

Pictured above from the left: Prof Oddmund Løkensgard Hoel; Prof. Dr. Joachim Schachtner; Dr. Lillian Røstad (Managing Director, Simula); Prof. Dr. Holger Saß; Prof. Dr. Fabian Schmieder; Dr. Steven Hicks (Research Scientists, SimulaMet); Anastasiia Grishina (PhD student, Simula); Dr. Kyrre Lekve (Deputy Managing Director,Simula).