As part of the European university alliance EMERGE, the University of Inland Norway (INN) and eight partner institutions will offer Summer Internships in 2027 to students from their own and partner institutions, with a focus on local communities and civic engagement in each region.
This means that organisations in the Innlandet region, whether in business, the public sector or the voluntary sector, will have the opportunity to open their doors to students from France, Cyprus, Ireland, Spain, Slovakia, Germany and Greece, in addition to Norway.
To identify and establish contact with relevant organisations, a group of bachelor’s students in Organisation and Leadership at Lillehammer were tasked with initiating the project.
The project owners and commissioners are Trine Løvold Syversen, Associate Professor at the Inland School of Business and Social Sciences, and Bente Knippa Vestad, Adviser at the Centre for Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Development. Both are involved in EMERGE and in initiatives related to community engagement and regional collaboration.
The students delivered strong results and contacted 19 potential host organisations. In their final report and presentation, they identified which organisations responded positively or negatively to the initiative, explained the reasons behind these responses, and outlined the next steps required to secure continued engagement.
“For those of us working to realise EMERGE’s objectives relating to community engagement, it is valuable to have the opportunity to involve INN students in tasks connected to our project. It provided us with additional resources, while giving the students practical experience of project work for an external project owner. We look forward to exploring the details of the project report the students have produced,” says Løvold Syversen.