From the left:“Municipal Director Kjetil Kokkim, Head of Health Services Gunn Frøydis Holtet, Mayor Paul Johan Moltzhau and OsloMet’s Pro-rector Carl Christian Thodesen.
Agreement with Hurdal municipality – now covering the whole of Romerike
OsloMet entered into a letter of intent for cooperation with Hurdal municipality this week. Similar agreements now cover the entire region.
– OsloMet now has agreements with all the municipalities in Romerike. Reaching this goal has been important for us, says Pro-rector for social impact and collaboration, Carl Christian Thodesen.
Hurdal is located furthest north among the municipalities in Upper Romerike, with short distance to Gardermoen. The agreement focuses, among other things, on student recruitment, cooperation on placements, and also highlights a local challenge related to labour participation among young adults.
– Student recruitment, placement opportunities and development projects related to pharmacy are areas where we see potential. In addition, we have challenges linked to the fact that too many people living in Hurdal are outside work and education, says the Mayor of Hurdal, Paul Johan Moltzau.
Inclusion in working life
Moltzau emphasises that the agreement has clear ambitions and that he strongly believes Hurdal municipality and OsloMet can quickly establish university-related activities.
– We will need more employees in the care and welfare sector in the coming years, as well as getting more people into work. Good solutions for how to achieve greater inclusion in working life for even more people will be an important area of development for the municipality going forward. A collaboration with OsloMet on this would be beneficial, says the Mayor.
Adapted to each municipality
The agreements that have now been concluded with all 11 municipalities in Romerike follow a common main template, but are adapted based on local wishes and needs.
The agreement with Hurdal municipality lists four objectives for the collaboration:
- Increase labour participation among young people (18–24 years) in Hurdal.
- Create low-threshold pathways to work for people with remaining work capacity.
- Develop long-term competence and recruitment, especially within health and care services.
- Strengthen cooperation between academia (OsloMet), the municipality, and local business.
– We look forward to following up and developing the collaboration with a municipality with exciting ambitions, says Thodesen.
According to Statistics Norway’s most recent overview, the 11 municipalities in Romerike had around 338,000 inhabitants, with Lillestrøm as the region’s largest municipality and Hurdal as the smallest.
The letter of intent is the first step towards a more formal and long-term cooperation model. When concrete initiatives and areas of collaboration have been established, the parties will enter into a separate “university municipality agreement”.
(This text has been translated with the use of Microsoft Copilot. The text has been quality assured by OsloMet.)
