The Birkeland Centre for Space Science (BCSS) was one of the thirteen centers of excellence (CoE) that were recently evaluated by the Norwegian Research Council (NRC). The NRC started the CoE scheme in order to give Norway’s leading scientists the opportunity to reach ambitious scientific goals. The goal of the funding is to enable the centers–which represent a wide range of research areas–to generate ground-breaking results that advance the international research frontier. Each center receives funding for a period of ten years, contingent on a positive midterm evaluation.
BCSS belongs to the third generation of CoEs and has recently passed its midterm evaluation. The evaluation committee gave BCSS an overall assessment of “exceptional”. In addition, the committee found that scientific research at the Centre “is of the highest caliber with an outstanding international reputation”. BCSS will continue to be funded for a further five years.
The detailed report and information on evaluation criteria can be found here.
