Social Welfare Research Centre
The Social Welfare Research Centre is a research unit which is integrated into the Faculty of Social Science (SAM) at Oslo University College (OUC).
The Social Welfare Research Centre primarily focuses upon social work, child welfare pedagogy, and welfare studies and areas of special interest to the two master’s degree programmes at OsloUniversityCollege.
Since its establishment in 1988, the Social Welfare Research Centre has developed highly recognised research competencies in the following areas:
- Services at municipal social assistance offices and child welfare offices
- Welfare and the standard of living
- Unemployment
- Volunteer work, self-organisation and self-help
- Children, family and daily life
- Immigration and the multicultural society
- The functionally disabled and their organisations
The Social Welfare Research Centre emphasizes society’s most vulnerable groups in its research. Since 2002, The Group for Inclusive Welfare (GIV) has played a decisive role in strengthening the Social Welfare Research Centre’s contribution in this area through its extensive, dynamic analyses of social exclusion, poverty and social policy.
The Social Welfare Research Centre is financed by internal and external research funds. External finan-cing mainly comes from public authorities, the Norwegian Research Council, The Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation and charity organisations.
The Social Welfare Research Centre has a prominent position in the research strategy of the faculty and OUC.