Norway has a rich and vibrant civil society that is of huge social and economic value. The majority of the adult population engages in voluntary work each year. In recent years, the ISF’s long-term research in this field has been further developed and extended to include new topics, such as the role of non-profit organisations as welfare providers and the importance of civil society for community resilience.
Much of the research on Norwegian conditions has been added to the Centre for Research on Civil Society and Voluntary Sector, a centre operated in co-operation by the ISF and the NORCE Norwegian Research Centre. The Centre for Research on Civil Society and Voluntary Sector studies long-term trends in participation, organisation, and policy.
Civil society research has a strong international and comparative dimension, expressed through participation in a EU-COST-Action on social entrepreneurship (Empower-SE) in the Nordic network for co-creation (NOS-HS) and in the completed EU-FP7 project Third Sector Impact (2013–2017).
Centre
Projects
- Changing organizational landscape (2023-24)
- Climate, evironment and society: Research initiative by Institute for Social Research
- Co-production in the Nordic Welfare States in Transformation
- Communication Power of Politicians in a Digital Age (CEPOL)
- Comparing Histories of Antisemitism in Contemporary Europe
- Consequences of the Pandemic for Living Conditions and Equality
- Cultural Institutions and Volunteerism III
- Economic barriers for children and adolescents’ participation in organized cultural activities
- EMPOWER SE
- Eurasso: Towards a knowledge programme on civil society organisations in Europe
- Far right politics online and societal resilience (FREXO)
- Follow-up Evaluation of Norwegian Women's Public Health Association’s Kvinnehelsehus
- Inclusion of Children and Youth in Organized Leisure in Local Communities in Norway (ICYVOL)
- Institutional trust among different population groups in Norway
- Internal democracy of voluntary organisations
- Municipal policy: Policy and practice for volunteering in health and care
- New trends in civic engagement and digital media
- NORPOL – is Norwegian society being polarized?
- Recruitment and inclusion in volunteer organizations
- Review of research on quality differences between nonprofit, for-profit and public sector providers of publicly funded welfare services
- Survey of food distribution by voluntary organizations and other relevant actors
- The interaction of volunteering with business
- The needs of future voluntary emergency response
- The social impact of voluntary organizations on inclusion
- Voluntary organizations in local emergency management
- Volunteering 2022-2024