Marte C. W. Solheim, from Dale to travelling around the world
About Marte C.W. Solheim
Marte C. W. Solheim was born in Dale i Sunnfjord, a small village on the westcoast of Norway. She grew up in a family of six, as the second youngest of four sisters. When she was 16, she left Dale and travelled to Wales to attend the United World College of the Atlantic. She later travelled around the world, lived a few years in the Dominican Republic before moving back to Norway.
She has studied journalism in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Spanish and Latin-American studies in Bergen, Norway, and holds a Bachelor`s degree in Media & Communication from Volda University College. She worked for ODIM (Later Rolls-Royce) in the field of communication. She holds a Master`s degree in Urban Planning & Management and a PhD in Management. Solheim holds a Ph.D. in management from the University of Stavanger. Her thesis entitled “Innovation, Space, and Diversity” particularly focused on the connection between diversity and innovation.
Marte C.W. Solheim is the Pro- Rector for Innovation and Society at the University of Stavanger.
She is a Professor in Innovation Studies at the same University and a former head of its Centre for Innovation Research.
Solheim was elected deputy leader for the Young Academy in Norway in the period 2022-2023 and has received the 2021 the Competence sharing prize from the Stavanger-region Chamber of Commerce.
Her research has primarily focused surrounding human resources and firm-level innovation, regional studies, and more recently on firm-level strategies and entrepreneurship. She has also extensively studied various types of diversity and different forms of innovation, and the association between these.
On innovation, her research has explored firm-level strategies in times of crisis, spurred by engagement in several research projects investigating innovation during Covid-19. She has moreover also recently been investigating entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on immigrant entrepreneurship.
Her research combines insights from organizational theory, innovation studies and economic geography. She is particularly interested in understanding how innovation is inspired when a variety of diverse knowledge intersect, and the contextual factors affecting this association.
Solheim is actively engaged in the public debate on migration, diversity and innovation-related issues in Norway and is invited to speak at national diversity conferences as well as to national policymakers, political spheres and other institutions.
On this website, you will be able to gain access to her peer-reviewed publications, reports and also some of her Op-Eds written for diverse outlets.
Distinguished service to Regional Studies Award
I am delighted to share the news that I have been honored with the 2023 Distinguished Service to Regional Studies Award.
Gallery
Press images of Marte C.W. Solheim.
Marte C.W. Solheim. Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Marte C.W. Solheim,
Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Marte C.W. Solheim. Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Marte C.W. Solheim.
Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Marte C.W. Solheim.
Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Marte C.W. Solheim.
Picture by Marie Von Krogh.
Speaking at the Bjergsted conference.
Picture by Tord F. Paulsen.
Speaking at the Bjergsted conference.
Picture by Tord F. Paulsen.
Jury-leader Hanne Berentzen and Marte C. W. Solheim at the award ceremony
Marte C.W. Solheim wins the Competence sharing prize 2021
The background for the award is that the Stavanger-region chamber of commerce want to reward a company or an individual that is best at competence sharing. The purpose is to stimulate the sharing of competence, learning both externally and internally, make the Stavanger-region visible as a competence region and to reward people and companies that have contributed to sharing in particular.
The prize has been awarded since 2008, and previous winners are Norwegian Shell, Skretting, Rogaland Course and Competence Center, British Petroleum (BP), Norwegian Oil Museum, Inger Tone Ødegård, IRIS Society, Petrad, Christian Rangen, Renaa Restaurants, Stiftelsen PsykOpp and Innovation Dock.
Solheim is the third in history to recieve the award as an individual, and the first to recieve it from the University sector.
Active and engaged
Solheim has been involved in several national and international research and consultancy projects as lead, member and as expert advisor.
She has been an expert advisor and consultant for diversity and inclusion projects , as well as acts on different advisory boards for research projects within innovation and entrepreneurship.
Solheim is been involved in several research projects, such as being a work package leader for the Regional Resilience and Sustainable Industrial Restructuring, read more about this project here.
PhD thesis and beyond
Solheim defended her PhD thesis: “Innovation, Space, and Diversity” on January 20th 2017.
Opponents were Professor Ron Boschma and Associate Professor Abigail Cooke.
Her main supervisor for the PhD was Professor Rune Dahl Fitjar and co-supervisor was Professor Ragnar Tveterås, both at the Centre for Innovation Research, UiS Business School, University of Stavanger, Norway.
This PhD aims at gaining insight on the interdependencies of firms and external
knowledge linkages in innovation, particularly focusing on the role of diversity.
The overall research question is: how does diversity and space affect
innovation?
The PhD was a compilation of four individual papers, and a introductory chapter.
Some of the questions asked during the PhD viva revolved around diversity vs. similarity and “optimal” levels of diversity. This was followed up by a study published in Research Policy that can be found below.
Some glimpses from the big day.