Eastern Norway Research Institute (ENRI)

Eastern Norway Research Institute (ENRI) was established in 1984 as a private autonomous non-profit foundation. The foundation established in 2012 ØF | ENRI ltd together with Lillehammer University College, the County Authorities of Hedmark and Oppland and Sparebanken Hedmark (a self-owned regional savings bank). The foundation is the main shareholder. Dividends to shareholders are not paid out. The Institute has its main office in Lillehammer, Norway, and a side office in Hamar.

The daily management of the Institute is undertaken by Managing Director Tor Arnesen.

Staff

The staff constitutes an interdisciplinary and inter-scientific community with a main emphasis within the social sciences. The researchers have higher degrees in various disciplines such as economics, social anthropology, geography, societal planning, political science, sociology, the sociology of education, and philosophy as well as such subject areas as agriculture and engineering. Currently the institute has a staff of 24 researchers.

Activity

The activity is based on two sources of income, (1) a basic funding from the governmental research agency The Research Council of Norway (15 % - 20 %), and (2) project based assignments (85 % - 80 %). Projects extend from long-term research projects to research-based analytical reporting and consultancy work. The Institute have a large number of clients. The majority are public bodies such as The Research Council of Norway, ministries and directorates, county authorities and local state administration. The Institute then have assignments for NGO's, organisations, individual local authorities and private firms.

All activity is research based, but extends from basic research, to applied research, studies and analysis. The staff also engages in process management and moderator functions think tanks etc. The institute closely cooperate with university colleges in the region and the staff is involved in their educational activities.

Areas of activity

The institute has organized its activity in two research groups:

• Regional, Socio-economic and Industrial Research - with an emphasis on tourism, cultural, experience based and natural resources based industries, development in mountain communities, core-periphery issues, rural development, and regional analysis (population, migration, commuting, employment, industry, clusters, innovation, infrastructure, etc.).
• Welfare, organizational and municipal research - with emphasis on health care in rural areas, children and youth, adolescence and skills development, entrepreneurship training and diversity in organizations, military sociology.

In addition, both groups do evaluation assignments.

Communication of results from the various research project are conveyed partly through reports and notes in our own publication series and partly through scientific peer reviewed articles, other types of professional articles, book chapters, external report series and conference papers. Our staff give popular science lectures, both in and outside the region, write feature articles in local and national press.