Bjørn Hvinden

Magister Artium (Master of Arts) in Sociology, with Social Medicine and Economics as supporting subjects, University of Oslo, 1977.
Doctor Philosophiae (Dr), University of Oslo, 1992.
Professor of Sociology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).

Fields of interest:
* Social policy (especially policies to promote inclusion and combat exclusion,   
   disability policies, policies towards ethnic minorities, social capital, active citizenship, comparative
   welfare research,
   relations between European and national welfare policy).
* Social inequality, marginality and minority issues (especially the situation of Travellers or Romani
   people in Norway).
* Social movements and mobilisation (especially self-organisation among Travellers, people with
   impairments, disadvantaged groups).
* Individual handling of risks (especially in the context of food safety).


Jan Tøssebro

Jan Tøssebro is professor of Social Work at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. His main research interests
have for the last decades been policies, social reforms and services for disabled people.
The main profile has been to explore how policies and services are transformed into everyday life experiences and living conditions of groups at risk. Publications include a number of books, edited volumes and  journal articles. He has been appointed to several Norwegian Public Committees and is currently a member of the Equality and Discrimination Tribunal.


Jorma Sipilä

PhD from the University of Helsinki 1976.
Professor of social policy and social work 1982-.
Rector of the University of Tampere 1998-2004.
Chancellor of the University of Tampere since 2004.
Main interest: Avantgarde solutions in social care service and informal care in Finland motivated me to move on to new research issues at the beginning of the 1990s.  Where had these solutions come from and what would their outcome be?  The enduring point of departure for research has been a holistic understanding of social care.  Its recipients are both the young and the old.  It is practised in homes, organisations, enterprises, and as a public service.  There are vast differences in the forms and cultures for producing social care, and from it the opportunity for comparisons opens up right to the most fundamental issues of life.  Research setups have become international and that again motivated me to continue.


Rannveig Traustadóttir

Rannveig Traustadóttir, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Iceland. Much of her research in Disability Studies has examined the intersection of disability and gender, as well as other categories of inequality, such as social class, ethnicity, age and sexuality, and how these create multiple layers of discrimination and social exclusion in disabled people’s lives. Her current research projects focus on childhood disability, poverty, social policy and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. She has been one of the leaders in developing Disability Studies as a scholarly field in the Nordic countries and was the president of NNDR, The Nordic Network on Disability Research, for seven years (2000-2007). She has published 12 books and numerous articles on disability, gender, policy, family, deinstitutionalization and qualitative research methods.


Sigrún Júlíusdóttir

PhD, Sigrún Júlíusdóttir is a professor at the University of Iceland. She graduated from the School of Social Work, University of Lund, Sweden 1970 and  completed  a Phil. Cand  in Sociology, University of Stockholm. She holds a MSW from University of Michigan, USA with training in couple- and family therapy, 1978 and a PhD in social work from  University of Gothenburg, Sweden 1993. She is a licenced psychotherapist and  trained in supervision and consultation.  She runs a small private practice working with supervision, councelling and psychotherpy with individuals and  families.
Professor Juliusdottir was a Chief Social Worker at the Icelandic University Psychiatric Hospital in for  twenty years before her position  at the Social Work Department,  University of Iceland 1991. She conducts courses and programmes in family therapy and supervision at the Institute of Continuing Education. She is  Chair for the Research Center of Family Relations, University of Iceland. 
Her research area is on family matters, supervision and the professional and academic development of social work. She has written books and articles in Icelandic, Swedish and in English.