Bjørn Hallstein Holte / VID: “The 3IN Alliance pushes us to explore new ways of collaborating”

Bjørn Hallstein Holte is an associate professor at VID Specialized University in Norway. In 3IN Alliance he has been involved in trying out different forms of online student mobility, organizing guest lectures, and writing applications for funding. In his free time, he spends time with his family and enjoys various sports such as biking, skiing – and unicycling.

– I am one of the international coordinators at the Faculty of Social Studies at VID. I hope the 3IN Alliance will provide new opportunities for our students to get international exposure. I particularly look forward to exploring what we can do together online. I think it will let us include many more students in international activities, says Holte.

 To me, the question is not really what strengths each university has, but about the size and diversity we have together, which I think can give each one of us more space to be ourselves.

VID joined the 3IN Alliance as quite a new university: Several older institutions of higher education were merged forming VID in 2016. As VID is growing and changing rapidly, the timing is ideal to integrate the alliance into VID’s structures.

– In a way, we are rebuilding everything, so why not integrate the 3IN Alliance into everything we do? At VID, the 3IN Alliance pushes us to explore new ways of working and collaborating internationally, which I think we need. This is important, so we can ensure that all our students get the international exposure they should have in their study programmes, says Holte.

Holte thinks that all the universities in the 3IN Alliance have different strengths as they are very different universities.
– I have been positively surprised to see how much we share as well. I have found friends who share my interests across many of the 3IN Alliance partners. To me, the question is not really what strengths each university has but about the size and diversity we have together, which I think can give each one of us more space to be ourselves.

Read all stories from the 3IN website.  

The 3IN Alliance brings together diverse European higher education institutions with a joint mission: a world where no one is left behind. The Who is Who series introduces staff members and students behind the scenes of the 3IN Alliance.