URBAN RESILIENCE DIVERSE LIVELIHOOD AND EMPLOYMENT & SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY AAR5220 Abbas Saad Kristina Stendal Karlsen Nitu Bhujel
TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments............................................................................................................................2 1.Introduction...................................................................................................................................3 2.Methodology and Methods...........................................................................................................6 3.Diverse livelihoods and employment............................................................................................8 4.Sustainable Economy in Trondheim...........................................................................................14 5.Conclusion..................................................................................................................................20 6.References...................................................................................................................................21
TABLE OF FIGURES
ACRONYMS CRI- City Resilience Index IMDi- The Directorate of Integration and Diversity NAV- Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration NTNU- Norwegian University of Science and Technology SINTEF- Foundation of Industrial and Technological Research in Trondheim UDI- Norwegian Directorate of Immigration
Acknowledgments This report would not have been written without those who volunteered to be part of our fieldwork. They provided us with tremendous knowledge and made us aware of many socioeconomic issues in Trondheim. Among the organizations that helped us, we would like to thank: Innovation Norway, NTNU Business School, Work Work, and the Adult Education Center in Trondheim. We would also like to thank all the citizens we interviewed: Marianne Ingeborg Karlsen, Kristin Susanne Karlsen, Karl Elmer Sagmo, Tyler Stewart, Espen Meisfjord, Sondre Yggeseth, Jostein Storøy and Sigrund Stendal. Finally, we would like to thank those who supervised and helped us improve our work: David Smith (the class’s instructor), Marcin Sliwa (the class’s research assistant), and Sabrine Scherzer (Phd candidate at NTNU).
1. Introduction 1.2.
What is our report about?
The aim of this report is to assess the diversity of livelihood and employment and evaluate economic sustainability as part of the resilience framework of the city of Trondheim, Norway. After assessment and analysis, we suggest project ideas for each of the areas of study with possible implementations. The report is the result of a three weeks fieldwork conducted in Trondheim during February 2018. We interviewed different stakeholders, experts and citizens to investigate the abovementioned areas of study. This was an academic exercise for our Urban Resilience course where we had to assess urban resilience in Trondheim based on the City Resilience Index (CRI), provided by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Figure 11: City Resilience Index (Rockefeller Foundation)
The City Resilience Index aims at assessing the resilience of a city in a holistic approach. Between twelve multidisciplinary goals that cover topics ranging from infrastructure and economy to society and decision making, we were was assigned to assess the two above mentioned goals: diversity of livelihoods and employment and sustainable economy. While doing our fieldwork, other students at the Urban Ecological Planning master’s program at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) were also doing their fieldwork and assessing other aspects of urban resilience in Trondheim. We were six groups and we investigated two goals each. Therefore, joining our reports together would form a holistic and multidisciplinary assessment of urban resilience in Trondheim.
1.2.
What are the two goals we studied and how are they related to urban resilience?
1.2.1. Diversity of Livelihoods and Employment The idea that people should have diverse resources to establish their livelihood started to become an integral part in development studies since Amartya Sen wrote his famous essay on entitlement. Sen explained that every individual in society is entitled to different assets and their ability to sustain a living is dependent on how these assets may be affected during economic shocks and stresses (Sen, 1982). The City Resilience Index which we follow to do our assessment considers having “diverse livelihood opportunities and support mechanisms that allow citizens to proactively respond to changing conditions within their city without undermining their wellbeing” an essential goal to reach a desirable state of urban resilience (CRI, 2015, pg.3). People need to own different properties, have different income generating skills and activities. When they depend on one skill or one activity to produce income, they need to be provided with new opportunities and trainings in case economic conditions change. The better this is done; the more resilient people are to economic shocks and stresses. That is what we want to assess in the context of Trondheim by using indicators that are also provided by the City Resilience Index of the Rockefeller foundation. 1.2.2. Sustainable Economy People in the city do not only need to diversify their economic skills and opportunities, but they also need a “robust economic system that is critical to sustain the investment that a city needs and able to maintain its infrastructure” (CRI, 2015, pg.5). A sustainable economy should maintain a certain level of production and stability that the inhabitants of the city need. People in the city need to be resilient to shortages in economic productions. Moreover, in a quickly changing world, a sustainable economy is an economy that can always adapt to new conditions and new methods of production through innovation and entrepreneurship. The more people can be creative in starting new businesses when they are in a position of weakness, the more resilient are they in the long run. We will also use indicators provided by the City Resilience Index of the Rockefeller foundation to assess this goal in the context of Trondheim.
2. Methodology and Methods Interviewing and holding conversations with different stakeholders, experts and citizens in Trondheim was the main research method we used for our fieldwork. There are many reasons why we chose to qualitatively interview people instead of asking them to fill out quantitative surveys or questionnaires. From an epistemological point of view, we chose to conduct interviews because we wanted to generate knowledge through human interaction. We wanted to interact with people and reflect upon our conversations with them instead of just asking questions and getting standardized answers. The best example to clarify our methodology is the metaphor that Kvale (1996) uses in his book “Interviews: An Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods”. Kvale (1996) distinguishes between the researcher as a “miner” and the researcher as a “traveler”. The miner thinks that the knowledge lies inside the people and it is the researcher’s role to “mine” it. The traveler, however, does not “mine” for knowledge, but rather “wanders” with people’s thoughts until original stories and perceptions are constructed. Urban resilience is also a topic that requires qualitative analysis. Here we refer to the critique that Sanderson and Sharma (2016, pg.40) provide against using quantitative methods in studying resilience: “Quantitative methods to measure resilience tend to involve calculating scores, ranks and indexes. They predominantly look at resilience as an outcome. These somewhat reductionist methods are usually driven by ‘experts’ who design questionnaires and other extractive tools based on their generalized assumptions of what resilience is.” They add: “Understanding people’s resilience to natural hazards through the lens of their vulnerability therefore requires detailed studies relying upon qualitative research methods to better reflect the unique realities of people’s everyday lives. These include tools such as semi-structured interviews, life stories, participant observations and focus groups designed to foster interaction between outside researchers/practitioners and local people.” (Sanderson and Sharma, 2016, pg.43).
1.2.
Who are the people we interviewed?
To know more about the diversity of livelihoods and employment, we conducted in depth interviews with locals and asked them about the perceived risks they have. These people were: Marianne Ingeborg Karlsen (working), Kristin Susanne Karlsen (working), Karl Elmer Sagmo (student), Tyler Stewart (student), Espen Meisfjord (unemployed university graduate), and Sondre Yggeseth (student). In addition, we met an assistant at the Adult Education Center in Trondheim. To know more about how sustainable the economy of Trondheim is, we interviewed Janina Lamøy who is an adviser at Innovation Norway’s office in Trondheim, Espen Gresstvolt who is a professor at NTNU Business School, Marius Thorvaldsen who is a founder of Work Work, Jostein Storøy who is real estate businessman in Trondheim, and Sigurd Stendal who is opening a new business in Trondheim. In total we had a sum of twelve interviews. Some of them were conducted in English and others were conducted in Norwegian but they were interpreted in English by Kristina, the only
Norwegian in our group. Some of these interviews were recorded and transcribed, and others were not recorded but we wrote notes while conducting them. The finalized transcriptions and notes were the reference we used to write this report.
1.3.
Secondary data
Finally, we used secondary data based on the interviewees’s recommendations. Those were state issued reports such as the Impello Analysis 2017 which is a report on tech companies in Trondheim and the NAV statistics of 2017. Most of this data were in Norwegian but again, Kristina, our Norwegian group member, read them and translated the important parts to English. We used these data to support the reflections we got from the interviewees and get a bigger picture about Trondheim, but we did not use them as an essential part of our research.
3. Diverse livelihoods and employment We followed two indicators to understand this goal. The first is: inclusive labour policies and standards with an effective welfare system for low income groups. The second: relevant skills and training which includes effective mechanisms for matching skills to the current and emerging employment marketplace.
1.2.
Challenges in Trondheim
The crisis of the oil sector in 2014 increased the unemployment rate of Norway, especially of west coast regions whose economies are based on oil sector. Trøndelag, however, has less impact from that crisis and had a continuous decline in their unemployment rate. According to NAV’s statistics (2017), the unemployment rate of Sør-Trøndelag for 2017 was 2,2%. In December 2017 the rate was 1,9% which is the lowest rate in 30 years, especially the unemployment rate for young people below 30 years has decreased (NAV, 2017). Last year the unemployment rate fell 20% and the sectors with the highest decrease in unemployment rate are engineering and ICT, which has decreased 40% the last two years (NAV, 2017). Bente Wold Wigum, region director in NAV Trøndelag writes in an article published by Adressa, that this is a good starting point for Trøndelag in 2018 (Wigum, 2018). However, another challenge is rising as the demand to get sufficient qualified labor force is rising. The society is in continuous change and the technological development has caused radical changes in the job market. It is predicted that a lot of routine-based work will be replaced by machines and manual labour will be done where working force is cheap. The fast pace of the changes also causes knowledge and competence to not last for long. The need for readjustment in the society is also linked to changes when it comes to the transition to more long-term sustainable solutions, also called “the green change”. Some jobs are more vulnerable than others, and the need for diversity in skills both on state level, city level and personal level is increasing. Acting director Arve Winsnes in NAV Sør-Trøndelag also reminds us that even though the rate is decreasing, there are still a lot of people that are unemployed (Winsnes, 2017). In Trondheim there are 2483 people registered without work, which is 2,4 % of the workforce (the sum of employed and unemployed) in January 2018 (NAV, 2017). There are some groups that are more vulnerable than others. The unemployment rate for immigrants is higher than for the rest of the population. The average on state level is 5,6 for immigrants, while for the rest of the population it is 1,9 (Statistics Norway, 2018). The Directorate of Integration and Diversity (IMDi) (2018), writes that there are two groups: Immigrants who are over-represented in occupations without requirements for education, the other group is immigrants with a high level of education, who are overqualified for their current job. A study among immigrants in 2016 showed that 23% stated that they were overqualified for their job, while 13% of the rest of the population stated the same (IMDi, 2018).
1.3.
Stakeholders
1.3.1. NAV NAV, or the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration consists of a governmental administration and social services on municipal level. NAV administer a third of the national budget through schemes such as unemployment benefit, work assessment allowance, sickness benefit, pensions, child benefit and cash-for-care benefit. Every municipality in Norway has at least one local NAV office, however the different offices provide different services. The minimum requirements for a NAV office is that they provide economic social help, and a qualification program. Their main goals are to: ●
Get more people active and in work, and fewer people on benefits
●
Create a well-functioning job market
●
Provide the right services and benefits at the right time
●
Provide good services tailored to the users' needs and circumstances
●
Comprehensive and efficient labour and welfare administration
The ways they prepare, respond, adapt and transform One of the main goals NAV has is to get people active and in work, and they provide quite a few measures to help people into work and prevent unemployment. Some of the measures individuals that are unemployed or are at risk of getting unemployed are being offered are:
Clarification: Help to map one's qualifications and what they can be used to.
Work practice: NAV cooperates with different businesses that provides practice. This is for those who are in need of work experience or training, or have reduced working capacity.
Follow-up measures: Assistance or guidance to find or to keep one’s job. This could be a mentor to help you either at your working place or to help you with your studies.
Qualification: Measures for those who need more competence before they can compete on the job market.
Work-oriented rehabilitation: These are measures which aims at strengthen your capacity, and help you through health related or social problems in your working life.
Grants for wage expenses: The employer can get parts of the wage covered by NAV, for instance if one, caused by health issues, is exposed to lose his/hers job.
Qualification programme: This is for those who wants to work, but are in need of extra guidance to make it.
Facilitation: Measures to help those who are able to work if practical circumstances are facilitated.
Facilitated work: This is work that is adjusted to fit special needs.
1.3.2. Trondheim Adult Education Center Trondheim Adult Education Centre offers free education for those who have not completed primary and secondary school, high school and provides Norwegian language training for immigrants. Interviewing two of the assistants they said that they have about 2000 students. For the Norwegian course anyone with asylum applying would be accepted by Norwegian law. This semester there were about 1200 students attending. For the primary and secondary school they have two units, one unit for young students between 16 and 20 with about 200 students, and one unit for those above 20. This semester they had about 170 applicants, but only 70 were accepted because that is what their budget allowed, so the demand is clearly higher than what is offered. When applying for primary and secondary school those with special needs will be prioritized, and some groups are required to be accepted. Even though this is not specifically aimed at immigrants, almost every adult doing the primary and secondary school are so. The number of Norwegians are decreasing drastically, which is probably because the schools have been better at following up students when they are young.
1.4.
Measures aimed specifically at getting immigrants active and in work
In 2016 Trondheim Kommune was nominated by the Directorate of Integration and Diversity for their work with refugees that year. One of the reasons for that were how they collaborated with public institutions and private businesses and organizations to get immigrants, and especially refugees active and in work. In 2016, 53% of the participants in the introduction course go straight into work or education after finishing, which is the highest number among the Norwegian big cities (IMDi, 2016). NTNU and Trondheim Kommune are collaborating with a programme called Academic Guest Network. This is a measure aimed at refugees with academic background, that are doing the introduction programme. This is a programme institutions at NTNU can sign up to. Right now six institutions are involved. The idea is to include refugees in the social life and give them a professional update, and that this will help them get a job or to do further studies. Gulabuddin Sukhanwar from Afghanistan participated in the programme and says that just being a part of an academic environment, participating in classes, meet other students and participate in discussions motivated him and has been an important part of his inclusion. This also helped him getting a one year job at Litteraturhuset. He states, however, that there should be more
institutions engaged in this collaboration so that more refugees could get the same opportunity he got (WaterlooNormannsen, 2017).
1.5.
Measures for matching skills to the current and emerging employment marketplace
1.5.1. Sør-Trøndelag Region On request from the government Sør-Trøndelag fylkeskommune in 2015 made a regional plan for labour and expertise 2016-2019. The goal with the planning process is to contribute in strengthening the contact and collaboration among different actors, such as the education institutions, private and public employers and NAV. They emphasized that it is important to approach the case from different angles. They also emphasize that expertise and competence is more than just formal education. It is about knowledge, engagement and skills, which can be gained from many instances. Furthermore, they present three measures they are working towards:
In the future, schools should not only give its students’ academic expertise, it should also give them expertise in how to develop their skills throughout their lives.
Improve the guidance and knowledge about the job market and relevant expertise for young people that are about to choose their professional direction.
Improve the possibilities for further training when employed and within the company to customize the expertise. This can also help getting more immigrants into work.
The plan also mentions the huge possibility in getting more immigrants employed (SørTrøndelag FylkeKommune, 2016).
1.6.
Perception of risk and reliance to the welfare system
The people we interviewed expressed confidence in both getting a job and in keeping their present job. Especially the two locals working in public sector expressed high unlikeliness that something would happen. A man working in private sector was more open to the idea that bad times could strike his business, but that he then would have to adapt, and assumed that he in some way would find a way to keep it up. The ones studying within cultural sector said that the market for that is not too big in Trondheim, but did not worry much about it, as they believed they would find something to do as long as they were flexible. They all showed a great reliance in the Norwegian welfare system, and knew that they would get unemployment benefit if they were unemployed. One woman we interviewed had been unemployed for some time some years ago, and told us that she had no problem being qualified to get unemployment benefit, but the monthly payment was not high, and that she had to rent out parts of her apartment to have more income. She said that it would probably have been harder if she did not own, but rented. She also expressed that the support she got from NAV was helpful. However, it was not possible to study and get unemployment benefit at the same time. In the end she got a new job. Those we interviewed that
were past their 50s were quite sure they wouldn’t lose their job, but said that they knew people that had problems to be hired because of their age. They also said that they would probably also have more difficulties in changing their profession.
1.7.
What value does diversity in skills have?
Those we spoke to emphasized skills they have gained from many different sources beside their main profession or study field as very valuable. This could be part time jobs, hobbies, “dugnad”, volunteer work, student organizations and from changing study fields. They valued their diversity on a personal level, but also because it made them flexible in job opportunities. To some this had been crucial when they got their first jobs. However, one mentioned that flexibility had most to do with your mind set, that it was just as much about being willing to be flexible, and to do different things, just as much as having skills. Those who didn’t have professionally oriented education seemed to often have a harder time finding a job, but at the same they seemed more flexible in what they were doing, and had a lot of different jobs behind them. While those with a clear profession that we interviewed were less willing to change direction to avoid unemployment in bad times.
1.8.
Project Idea: Provide immigrants whose academic degrees are not accredited in Norway with a chance to improve their education at NTNU
1.8.1. What is the idea, what risks does it tackle, and why is it important? Immigrants have a much higher unemployment rate in Trondheim than the rest of the population (source). Immigrants are also not one group that have the same level of skills and education. There are those who do not have sufficient higher education to compete in the Norwegian job market and they usually get education at the Adult education center, and there are also those who have higher education but unfortunately their degrees are not accredited at NTNU. We think that the earlier category should be provided with opportunity to improve their education at NTNU instead of getting jobs that they are overqualified for. There is already what is called “academic guest network” at NTNU which is an offer for immigrants to participate at NTNU. Many of immigrants are aware of that but those who participated think that more people should have the possibility to participate. So, our idea is to let immigrants, who have higher education but their degrees are not accredited in Norway, have a chance to improve their capabilities at NTNU. In this manner, this category of immigrants will not be overqualified for jobs, but they will increase their chances for being in leading professional positions in the future.
1.8.2. Short term Strategy: The short-term strategy for this project is to first filter the immigrants from the moment they apply for resident permits at UDI. Our interest is that the abovementioned category is put in touch with the academic guest network at NTNU to discuss how they can improve their academic credentials. 1.8.3. Long term Strategy: In the long term, the academic guest network at NTNU should be enlarged to become a fixed institution at NTNU that has a larger budget to cater for the increasing number of immigrants. 1.8.4. Limitations: Ideas that aim at integrating foreigners in Trondheim might not be of huge interest for the rightwing government in Norway. UDI are now increasing VISA fees and trying to extend the period for acquiring Norwegian citizenship. Ideas like ours need bureaucratic changes might not be possible to do if UDI’s policy is not in line with that.
4. Sustainable Economy in Trondheim In the City Resilience Index, the economic and social dimension is related to the organization of cities that include how social and economic systems enable urban populations to live peacefully and act collectively. To explain more about the sustainable economy, we have chosen two indicators from CRI: Diverse Economic Base and Attractive Business Environment.
1.2.
Economy of Trondheim
Norway has a very high standard of living and has a strongly integrated welfare system. The growth rate of GDP has increased from 1.08% to 1.36% in 2017 comparing to previous year (Impello Analysis, 2017). Norway has an oil industrial profile and when oil price had dropped by 70% in June 2014, it had greater impact in Norwegian economy with the increase in unemployment rate up to 4.6% (Fouche and Solsvik, 2016). However, Trondheim was not affected by this crisis as its economy is robust and flexible. The city has rich business environments which are flourishing in different sectors which make the city more sustainable and less vulnerable.
1.3.
First Indicator: Diverse Economic Base
Trondheim has a wide range of industry. It is characterized by having a strong public sector. NTNU and SINTEF, large independent research organization employ 7,000 scientists and researchers, and have more than 40,000 students enrolled (Impello Analysis, 2017). The regional hospital St. Olavs located in the city is also employing more than 10,000 people providing lots of employment opportunity to locals (Impello Analysis, 2017).
Figure 42: Key figures for the technology sectors in Trondheim (Impello Analysis, 2017)
Not only the public sectors but private sectors are also becoming strong nowadays in the city. One of the missions of Trondheim is to make the city a “Technology Capital of Norway” and many technology-based companies have been established. This city is home to 675 technology companies employing 11,800 people generating more than NOK 14.4bn in revenues, according to the Impello Analysis (2017). This city has some big companies like Siemens and Statoil who has offices over here and other companies whose headquarter are in abroad but have branch
offices here. The small-scale companies like Marine industry: Norwegian Royal Salmon and small trade companies: Egon, Rema, Jordbærpikene also have influence in the economy of Trondheim as they provide lots of employment opportunities. The table above shows the economic growth of the city in technological sectors and numbers of companies established in different fields.
1.4.
Second Indicator: Attractive business environment
Trondheim is one of the most technologically advanced and innovative city. It is considered as a hot spot for the start-up of new businesses and one of the reasons is the NTNU as it brings lots of young, creative and ambitious people over here who wants to establish new businesses in different sectors and people willing to start-up gets support from organization like Innovation Norway. 1.4.1. What is Innovation Norway (Innovasjon Norge): This organization supports two kinds of works: start-ups and innovative projects which covers different fields as they want to boost businesses in other areas reducing the dependency of economy in oil sectors and make the Norwegian economy more sustainable. They also finance the start-up businesses to reduce the risks they might face during the initial phase of no market place. These initiatives have helped quite a lot, last year 70 new start-ups where established which shows the interest of people in opening the new businesses in different sector. Trondheim Kommune has also been working towards this concept and aiming at making a cultural business more effective and attention at technology sector.
Figure 43: Number of Tech Companies in Trondheim (Impello Analysis, 2017)
1.4.2. Local’s perception towards sustainable economy and starting new businesses We had interview with two of the locals who have established new business in Trondheim and asked about their experience during the initial phase. They said it is very easy to start a new business in Norway or Trondheim as the system over here is very well organised, they can get the information in online which can be easily understood and can get financial support from Innovation Norway like they got. There is always competitiveness in the businesses but they do not feel much risk in it. They believe that if they work sensibly and follow rules and regulations any risk can be reduced. For instance, local businessman who we interviewed told us about the risk that he has gone through. He explained us that in 2009 one of his companies almost went bankrupt and they had to change the level of their activity. One of the members started to do another job and the rest of them started to work as a consultant for some time which was not part of their original idea of the business. When everything went well they go back to do what they wanted to do. He believed that a big part of doing a business is to adapt to the demand as there will be always risk and competitiveness in any field and how to cope with that depend on us. 1.4.3. Risk or challenges for economic growth When it comes to the private sector, compare to other main cities, Trondheim has lot of small start-up companies rather than big ones. Start-up businesses face more risk than well established companies making it more vulnerable and some new companies also collapse due to low market value of their company. However, still the amounts of businesses are increasing yearly in Trondheim. This may be due to its central location and well connectivity to all over Norway which is very strategic and also it has good connection internationally; there are many international companies whose branch offices here in this city. There might be few risks like companies could be bankrupt or fail of bigger projects but the city can cope with that crisis easily and will not have much effect in the economy of city as there are many small companies in different sectors. For instance, in case of Reinertsen bankrupt, about 70 employees lose their jobs during this crisis after Aker Solutions has taken over the oil and gas business of Reinertsen AS but those who lost their job soon got new jobs in other companies and sectors. This shows although the small scale companies do not give much value to the city like that of big ones but can cope with bad times and reduce the risk. One of the risks is Oslo becoming more dominant in economic sector. Being the capital city most of the big companies have their main offices in Oslo. Local businessman who we interviewed also has a company called “Kantega” whose management was sat in Trondheim but the main office was in Oslo and they have to make daily travel from Oslo to Trondheim that increase the expenses in travelling. We asked one professor from NTNU Business School, about his perception toward the sustainable economy of Trondheim and he believes the city has sustainable economy due to the richness in business environment and investments are happening in different sectors which are not based on oil and gas industry. One of the contributing factors for the sustainability is the well connectivity of city with other regions or abroad that attract many people to come to the city with
innovative ideas and start new business and strong public sector as government of Norway is investing in lots of new technology and research sector which is conducted by NTNU. 1.2.1. Work Work One of the projects to support the startup business and small companies is Work-Work which is an incubator providing both financial as well as workspace for them. It is a co-working space for small and medium business, students and freelancers which was established two years ago. At first it was related to gaming industry, space for a bar and showcasing game culture and building offices on top. But the concept of the hub has been changed with the time, become much broader and the main goal of this hub is always to make people come together, share and discuss their ideas. The most interesting part of this space is that they have work, fun and relaxing space together that attracts people to come over this place. This has workspace and offices at first floor, cafe and gathering or meeting space at the ground floor and games and party in the basement. Discussing with the founder of Work-Work we get to know that one of the main challenges for them is to keep on maintaining same interest among the people. The start-up businesses are always vulnerable as they do not have a market value in the initial phase. This incubator is helping small companies and freelancer who are financially weak by providing workspace in low price. They also have another business called Kick-ass which they use to explore in getting touch with new projects and invest in it. They also provide free working space in ground floor with café where people can use the space as a meeting place. This initiative helps to those freelancers who works from home and want free space just for having meeting or discussion with their client. Companies also get space for showcasing their project ideas and promote their business that helps to recognition in market. This initiative of Work-Work has given emphasis on promotion of business environment and trying to help in reducing the vulnerability for the start-up businesses through their goal. One of the long term plans of them is to make this meeting point for students, industry and real world to discuss the new ideas. They are trying to collaborate with student communities who have innovative and creative ideas. This project has get much more attention among people and people from other region are willing to have similar project in their community.
1.3.
Project Idea: Business Incubator that attracts international students
1.3.1. What risks does it tackle? And why is it important? In our discussion, we have showed that while it is true that Innovation Norway and other staterun institutions are trying to finance new businesses in order for them to compete in the market, there are still other risks that need to be tackled. New businesses in Trondheim need more cheap working places where people can interact and push their ideas forward. Moreover, we have also tried to assess Trondheim’s connectivity with the world. While Trondheim has quite good connectivity because of a lively airport and the presence of many international companies in the city, there is still a risk that the city cannot increase its international competence. Most cities that have well established universities are usually well connected with the world because of the cultural and economic relationships that their international alumni build. Trondheim does not seem to be doing very well from that angle and that is not good for a city that dreams of competing with other cities in Norway and the world. Our idea to tackle both abovementioned risks is to establish a new business incubator in the city that attracts international students. This incubator will bring more dialogue space for new businesses and include international students in long term activities in the city. We have discussed this idea with Marius at Work-Work and he said that there is high demand for such places especially in Trondheim where many students live. He also mentioned that social places to discuss ideas are needed more than ever because it is thought that technology can increase communication, but in fact today we are lacking social interaction that can push business ideas forward. We have also talked with Tyler Stewart, the president of the International Student Festival in Trondheim ISFiT and he said that there should be efforts to unlock the potentials of international students. These students can provide business ideas built in Trondheim with international competence. 1.2.1. Short Term strategy to apply the project In the short term, the best way to start promoting such project is to contact all existing incubators in Trondheim and other institutions that supports start-ups in to learn from their experiences. After that, it is also needed to start advertising for the project by doing campaigns in the city scape and on social media. 1.2.2. Long Term strategy to apply the project Authorities need to give special treatment regarding immigration and residency for international students who wish to build long term business ideas in Trondheim, otherwise many people will not be motivated to work with international students in such an incubator. Real strategies from the municipality and the Norwegian Directorate of immigration (UDI) should be implemented to make people feel that they can move easily from and to Trondheim.
1.2.3. What are the Limitations? Among the limitations are two issues that were also mentioned by Maruis from Work Work and Tyler, the president of the International Student Festival in Trondheim, respectively. First, there are many open office spaces in Trondheim which are not necessarily incubators, but they can also be seen from that angle. This might discourage public authorities from supporting our idea, although an incubator is not only about empty free spaces. Second, the value of international students is rarely seen as important as our project is proposing. There are examples in the city where, especially at Stundentersmafundet (The Student Society), where even the most open minded Norwegian students are still not able to attract international students.
5. Conclusion We conclude our report by quoting a sentence that most of the people we interviewed mentioned: “We never thought about it that way”. During our interviews people discussed things which they have never discussed before and became aware of many economic risks that they might encounter. Although the well-established welfare system makes people in Trondheim very relaxed about the opportunities they have, discussing issues they might face in the future is always important. Although our findings showed very good assessment of resilience in Trondheim, there was always a room for improvement. In Trondheim, we found that between the most vulnerable groups in the city are international students and immigrants and we suggested ideas about how to increase their economic chances and decrease their risks. Among the challenges that a mature city like Trondheim faces is how to improve the already good level of performance. New studies that engage people in discussing the case for urban resilience in Trondheim are therefore always needed.
6. References
2015. City Resilience Index (CRI) [Online]. Available: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/report/city-resilience-index/ [Accessed]. 2016a. IMDi Midt-Norge nominerer Trondheim kommune [Online]. Available: https://www.imdi.no/contentassets/899390ad302f4872bcaead60a227fb97/nominasjon-tilbosettingsprisen-2016-trondheim-kommune.pdf [Accessed]. 2016b. Sør-Trøndelag FylkeKommune: PLANPROGRAM FOR REGIONAL PLAN FOR ARBEIDSKRAFT OG KOMPETANSE [Online]. Available: https://www.stfk.no/Documents/Plan/Regional%20plan%20for%20arbeidskraft%20og %20kompetanse/Planprogram%20Regional%20plan%20for%20arbeidskraft%20og %20kompetanse%20070316.pdf [Accessed]. 2017. Impello Analysis [Online]. Trondheim. Available: http://impello.no/en/analysis [Accessed]. 2018a. IMDi: Sysselsetting blant innvandrere [Online]. Available: https://www.imdi.no/omintegrering-i-norge/innvandrere-og-integrering/sysselsetting/ [Accessed]. 2018b. Statistics Norway: Registrerte arbeidsledige blant innvandrere [Online]. Available: https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/statistikker/innvarbl [Accessed]. FOUCHE, G. & SOLSVIK, T. 2016. Norway's economy loses its shine. Reuters. KVALE, S. 1996. Interviewing as Research. In: KVALE, S. (ed.) Interviews: An introduction to Qualitative Research Interviewing. California: Sage Publications. NAV. 2017. Ledigheten sank gjennom hele 2017 [Online]. Available: https://www.nav.no/no/Lokalt/trondelag/nyheter/ledigheten-sank-gjennom-hele-2017 [Accessed]. SANDERSON, D. & SHARMA, A. 2016. World Disasters Report. In: SANDERSON, D. & SHARMA, A. (eds.) Resillience: Saving Lives today, Investing for Tomorrow. Geneva: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. SEN, A. 1982. Poverty and famines : an essay on entitlement and deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press. WATERLOONORMANNSEN, S. 2017. NTNU kan gjøre mye mer for flyktningene. Universitetsavisa. WIGUM, B. W. 2018. Trøndelag i medvind inn i 2018. Adressa. WINSNES, A. 2017. har ikke sett lavere arbeidsledighet på 30 år. Adressa.
