During the last decade, Norges Bank's Executive Board’s Norwegian Finance Initiative (NFI) has supported academic institutions and academics in Norway working on questions within the field of financial economics through several incentives. Over this period, we have witnessed how the finance departments in Norway have continued to grow and increase their international competitiveness, a development to which we are proud to have contributed.
During the same period, the central banking operations has been working in parallel to support faculty and students within macroeconomics in Norway through similar incentives, albeit at a smaller scale. We believe that there can be positive effects from merging these two programmes. The Executive Board has therefore decided to launch a new joint academic programme supporting the main academic areas relevant for Norges Bank, i.e. macroeconomics and financial economics. The primary objective of Norges Bank’s new joint academic programme will be to strengthen education within macroeconomics and financial economics in Norway, and several of the incentives currently run under the NFI and by the central banking operations will be continued under this new umbrella.
Norges Bank’s new academic programme will have three main incentives for macroeconomics and financial economics in Norway: (1) support for students who are accepted by a top-ranked international PhD programme, (2) support for PhD courses and lecture series at academic institutions in Norway, (3) co-financing of academic positions at academic institutions in Norway.
We are currently in the process of specifying these incentives, consulting academic institutions in Norway, and this work will be completed during Autumn 2021.
The NFI supported academic institutions in Norway in attracting scholars of high international standing to Norway and awarded publication bonuses to faculty members at academic institutions for outstanding research contributions.
We offered talented students to pursue PhD studies in financial economics, and awarded PhD scholarships to students accepted at top-ranked international PhD programmes.
The board supported the NFI by providing independent, credible and impartial recommendations on academic matters, such as the evaluation of candidates for co-sponsored professorships, PhD programmes or submitted research proposals.