To achieve this goal the network continuously develops new forms of collaboration and supports teacher and students exchanges. Nordplus is able to finance mobility for students and teachers through scholarship. The network is financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers and Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI).
Nordplus - Network Knowledge production in social work
The purpose of the network is partly to support development and education in innovative, creative and collective knowledge production for social workers, and partly to establish development activities involving practitioners/professionals, students, researchers and users.
Partners
Coordinator |
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| Department | |||
| Linköping University | Centre for Local Government Studies | ||
Network partners |
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| Denmark | |||
| Aalborg University | Department of Sociology and Social Work | ||
| VIA UC, Socialrådgiveruddannelsen i Aarhus |
via university College |
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| Finland | |||
| University of Helsinki | Institutionen för socialvetenskaper |
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| Iceland | |||
| School of Social Sciences | |||
| Norway | |||
| University of Stavanger | Department of Social Sciences | ||
| University of Agder - Campus Kristiansand | Department of sociology and social work | ||
| NTNU- Norwegian University of Science and Technology | Norwegian University of Science and Technology | ||
| Sweden | |||
| Linnaeus University | Socialt arbete | ||
| Malmö University | Fakulteten för Hälsa och Samhälle, Institutionen för socialt arbete | ||
Mobility
The exchange of knowledge among students has a great impact on understanding equality and differences in social work in the Nordic countries.
Although Nordic students experience a similarity in teaching and in performing social work in the Nordic countries, they also suddenly experience being the outsider who gets the opportunity to view their own knowledge in a new perspective. Mobility funds in the network creates a breeding ground for the students to choose Nordic countries as a place of study.
Student mobility information (with documents)
To approve mobility, students must submit an application to the coordinator, where approval is attached both your own and the guest university, so that the visit as a guest student can be included in the student's current study and is assigned the necessary ECTS. The coordinator grants it the support for mobility. At seminars, members of the network hold meetings and discusses among other things the framing of future time mobility among both teachers and students.
• Application student mobility
• Student mobility report
Teacher mobility information
The application for mobility among the teachers is sent to the coordinator, who if necessary grants the mobility.
• Application teacher mobility
• Teacher mobility report
Economy
• Travel expenses.
More information about the network
Coordination
For the financial years 2019/2020, the network has Linköping University and Centre for Local Government Studies, CKS as new coordinator. CKS focuses on questions and challenges of major importance for local municipalities and one focus area is welfare including social work. The priority within CKS is placed on collaboration with different parts of the research community and the main purpose of CKS is to generate knowledge through research, support, evaluation and seminars. CKS forms an important bridge between the research community and the member municipalities. The network will continue working with the same focus as previously but will also focus on developing and strengthen the mobility both regarding mobility in teaching and mobility among students.
To achieve this goal the network continuously develop new forms of collaboration and supports teacher and students exchanges. The background for the network's goal of developing social work must be found in the increasing demands and wishes for raising social workers’ knowledge activities. The reason for the goal is due to the increasing desire for new innovations and impact, and in the network, it goes both ways – impact on research and teaching and impact on practice in social work. The Nordplus network focuses on the development of good and usable methodological forms of knowledge development in welfare services, on the development / exchange of common teaching materials and the development of more socially relevant research forms.
Outcome of Nordplus
Nordplus was founded 2001 and the network and the production within the network have through the years contributed to the renewal of the curriculum, the dissemination of knowledge, to development and concrete methods in social work and in research in the same. area. Over the years, the network has been productive in several areas and some of the more significant activities are for example: published the book Practice Research in Nordic Social Work: Knowledge Production in Transition, edited and written a special issue of two full volumes in Social work & social sciences review, taken the initiative for conferences, special interest groups and participated in the framework setting of "Practice Research" - in both a European and a global perspective, developed a new method for social work practice ‘Critical Incident Reflection’, held four Nordic conferences on youth unemployment – in order to carry out a research project in the field.
All these activities originate of the exchange of knowledge and experience between the network participants – and hence the mobility there exists between the institutions. The ideas usually arise either through the individual teacher exchanges between the institutions. Or through organizing seminars where common Nordic themes are put on the agenda. Here are teachers and researchers from the network in the lectures as well as in the subsequent discussions. Both individual and the more collective exchanges of knowledge lead to new ideas that have created projects and development potentials that have an impact on knowledge development and qualification in teaching in social work, in research in social work and in practice in social work.
Ilse Julkunen, Lars Uggerhöj and Kerstin Johansson arranged a Nordplus conference in Norrköping 2016.