Personal website
Professor Eivind Engebretsen | Oslo
Academic interests
As a scholar in medical humanities, my expertise lies in the social epistemology of medical knowledge, focusing on its creation, application, documentation, evaluation, and dissemination in society. My work includes a collaborative effort with the French-Bulgarian philosopher Julia Kristeva, leading to an innovative 'translational' approach to the medical humanities. Translational Medical Humanities put human experience and dialogue at the centre of knowledge translation, viewing it as an ongoing exchange “ between health as a biomedical phenomenon and healing as lived experience” (Kristeva, Moro, Ødemark & Engebretsen 2017).
This interdisciplinary field was ignited by an international conference I organized in Oslo in 2018 and was expanded through the project "The Body in Translation - Historicising and Reinventing Medical Humanities and Knowledge Translation," which I co-led with John Ødemark and was funded by the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
This approach has gained international recognition, influencing researchers worldwide and resulting in a report on culture and health that I co-authored, commissioned by the World Health Organization. My latest book, co-authored with Mona Baker, contributes to this area by offering a narrative framework for understanding medical knowledge translation in situations of crisis.
I have further developed and institutionalized this viewpoint by embracing a teaching approach for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that is grounded in the principles of translational medical humanities. This approach is the cornerstone of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education, a Centre of Excellence funded by the Norwegian Government, and is detailed in a recent Lancet publication. Currently, I am engaged in three Lancet Commissions, offering my expertise in this evolving field.
Teaching
- FHE4350 – Politics of Sustainability in Public Health - Data-Driven Critical Conceptual Analysis – University of Oslo (uio.no)
- HELSEF4403 - Power and knowledge in health care (in Norwegian)
Background
Since 2012, I have been a Full Professor of Interdisciplinary Health Science (with emphasis on the medical humanities).
I am the Head and Co-Founder of the Faculty of Medicine’s Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE), which is the first Norwegian Centre of Excellence in medical education, funded by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills. I am also the Head of the Sustainable Health Unit, a cluster comprised of the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare Education (SHE), the Centre for Global Health and the Centre for Pandemics and One Health Research.
In 2021, I was appointed as Academic Chair of Global Health at the European University Alliance Circle U. with the mission to explore the interface between global health and democracy. See my mission statement here.
From November 2023, I am appointed as the first Dean of Circle U’s Open Campus with the academic responsibility for Circle U.'s educational program.
Previously, I've held academic leadership roles at the Institute of Health and Society and the Faculty of Medicine, where I led the development of Norway's first medical postdoctoral program. From 2019-2022, I was the Dean of Education at the Faculty of Medicine (UiO).
Honours and awards
- Fellow (and former group leader) at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
- Academic Chair of Global Health, Circle U. European University
- Member of the Chairs Academy, Circle U. European University
Commissions of Trust
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Commissioner, NUS-Lancet Pandemic Readiness, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation (PRIME) Commission (2023-)
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Commissioner, EASL-Lancet Commission on Liver Disease in Europe (2023-)
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Member of the UiO:Democracy Board (2022-)
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Associate Editor: International Journal of Health Policy and Management (2022-) Social Science and the Humanities Communications (Nature) (2019-) ● Informations System Journal (2022) ● International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2020-2022) ● Medical Humanities (2018-2019)
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Member of Board of Directors, Faculty of Health Sciences, Oslo Metropolitan University (2020-)
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Leader, WHO HEN report on the cultural contexts of health and knowledge translation (2019-)
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Research group leader, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2019-2020)
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Expert Panel Member, Interim-evaluation of Horizon 2020, European Commission, Brussels (2016-2017)
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Member of the steering group of the research priority area UiO:Life Science, University of Oslo (2016-2017)
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Norwegian delegate in the Helsinki Group on Gender Balance in Science, the European Commission, Brussels (2013-2017)
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Member of PhD Programme Board, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo (2013-)
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Board member of the International Society of Cultural History (ISCH) (2013-2016)
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Member of the Programme Board of the BALANSE-programme, Research Council of Norway (2013-2016)
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Member of the Committee for Gender Balance in Research (KiF), Norwegian Ministry of Education, Norway (2010-2013)
Collaboration
- Circle U. (Knowledge Hub of Global Health and Democracy)
- Interdisciplinary Research in Health Sciences, University of Oxford (prof. Trisha Greenhalgh)
- Université Paris Diderot (prof. Julia Kristeva)
- Karolinska Institutet (prof. Ole Petter Ottersen)
- The Genealogies of Knowledge Network (prof. Mona Baker)
New book:
Rethinking Evidence in the Time of Pandemics (Cambridge University Press 2022) (with Mona Baker)
The book is available Open Access from Cambridge Core
Mona Baker and I are blogging about the book here and on the LSE Impact Blog