Welcome to the NORENSE

At this website, you will find information about NORENSE, its aims and visions, guidelines for applying for funding, as well as reports and publications from supported research projects.

NORENSE stands for Nordic Research Network for Steiner Education. It was founded in 2007 by three Nordic higher educational institutions; Rudolf Steiner University College in Norway, Waldorf University College in Sweden, and Snellman College in Finland.

NORENSE is a Nordic collaboration with the aim of promoting and supporting research on Steiner Waldorf education, and contributing to the knowledge base and legitimacy of the Nordic Steiner Waldorf higher educational institutions. Today’s schools and educational practices are more and more informed by research. Very little research has until now been directed towards Steiner Waldorf  education, and there is a strong need for all kinds of educational research; investigating, evaluating, deepening and communicating the various aspects of Steiner Waldorf  education.

NORENSE are supporting individual and group research projects, as well as PhD and master students. This includes writing of articles based on completed research projects. In addition, NORENSE hosts a yearly seminar open to the public where supported projects and other relevant research topics are presented. Research projects funded by NORENSE are expected to be published in peer-reviewed journals, and in a popularised form in the Nordic Waldorf education magazines. An important principle for NORENSE is to ensure that supported research is disseminated to educational practitioners as well as to the research community.

NORENSE receives its funding resources mainly from the Waldorf school and kindergarten federations in the Nordic countries. Representatives from the Nordic higher educational institutions and from the federations are members of the NORENSE Council, who decides on the yearly funding. In addition, three representatives from public universities are members of the Council. NORENSE is managed by Rudolf Steiner University College in Norway. Caroline Bratt is the chair of NORENSE.

RoSE: Research on Steiner Education is a peer-reviewed online research journal supported by NORENSE.

Vision and strategies

As a recognised alternative to the public educational systems in the Nordic countries, Steiner Waldorf  education needs to be supported by research in manifold ways. Research can aid and initiate developments and provide new knowledge on all levels from kindergartens, schools and social therapeutic institutions to higher education. NORENSE aims at supporting qualified research that in its turn will provide insights and impulses for development to the different aspects of Steiner Waldorf  education. The higher educational institutions are key factors here since they both disseminate relevant research to future and current practitioners, and also conduct research as part of their institutional policy and responsibility.

By hosting yearly open seminars on research within Steiner Waldorf  education, NORENSE aims at sharing research insights to a broader public. Publishing supported research projects both in popular and scholarly media belongs to the NORENSE strategy of making research based insights more relevant and accessible.

NORENSE is founded on the idea that education has an important role to play in achieving individual, cultural and ecological sustainability. NORENSE wants to take its share of the responsibility for an education in need of change and to promote an education of tomorrow that takes active part in developing sustainable knowledge, skills and life conditions. Steiner Waldorf  education represents such an ethical attitude towards what it means to educate today’s children and youth for their future. By promoting research and the Nordic Steiner Waldorf  higher educational institutions, NORENSE wants to take part in the further development of Steiner Waldorf  education.

NORENSE Aims

• Contribute to development of a research culture within Nordic Steiner Waldorf education
• Support research, research collaboration and research publications relevant to Steiner Waldorf education in the Nordic countries
• Contribute to developing connections between research and educational practice within Nordic Steiner Waldorf education 
• Contribute to development of the participating higher educational institutions (this can be through shared research programmes, collaboration in institutional development, furthering teaching and learning in higher educational Waldorf Steiner contexts, contributing to research based lecturing, literature for students, etc.)
• Support PhD students connected to the three participating higher educational institutions

In Co-operation