Ingunn Skjesol
I am a professor of social science in the Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, at Nord University. My academic work is rooted in collaboration, between disciplines, professions, communities, and service users, and is closely connected to the development of health and welfare services in local, national, and international contexts. I have a long‑standing commitment to applied, practice‑oriented research and education and the importance of the links between research, teaching and practice.
My research explores how professional expertise, experience‑based knowledge, and policy interact in everyday practice. Throughout my career I have worked at the intersection between research and education, contributing to service development, policy debate, and capacity building in higher education. I am particularly motivated by creating arenas for shared learning, co‑creation, and participation.
I have more than fifteen years of experience teaching and supervising in higher education at bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD levels across health and social science programmes. My teaching philosophy is grounded in a sociocultural understanding of learning, emphasizing dialogue, reflection, and student‑active learning.
I view teaching as a collective and reflective practice, developed in close dialogue with students and colleagues. A central aim of my teaching is to help students connect theory, practice, and lived experience, preparing them for complex professional roles in health and welfare services.
I teach on a range of topics including, interdisciplinary collaboration, service user and public involvement, health-promoting and preventive work for children and young people, low-threshold services, family support services and qualitative methods.
I am also interested in how we make use of digital tools in research,collaboration and co-creation, and provide guidence for students and colleagues on the use of various digital technologies.
As an engaged member of the Mental Health Reserach Group in the faculty, I actively seek opotunities for collaboration and new perspectives, and my research is structured around four interconnected areas:
Collaborative practices
I study how collaboration across professions, sectors, and organizational boundaries creates conditions for learning, innovation, and service improvement. Drawing on concepts such as expansive learning and communities of practice, my work highlights how collaboration can transform both professional practice and academic cultures.
Low‑threshold family support services
A core focus of my research is family centres and open kindergartens inclusive services that support children and families. I have contributed conceptually and empirically to clarifying what “low threshold” means in practice, identifying hidden barriers to participation, and showing how peer support and community‑based approaches can strengthen family support.
Social implications of health policies
My work on health and welfare policies examines how trust, communication, and perceptions of fairness shape public engagement. I have researched Norwegian policy responses, vaccination strategies, and crisis governance, contributing to international debates on socially attuned policymaking and societal resilience.
Youth outreach and youth involvement
I am particularly interested in how youth outreach is practiced across different settings, particularly between urban and rural contexts. I am concerned with how contextual conditions shape outreach work, including differences in visibility, accessibility, relationships, and organizational frameworks. In addition, I have a strong interest in youth involvement within outreach practices. This includes how youth involvement is organized and practiced, how it is experienced by young people themselves, and what impact such involvement has on young people, outreach services, and local communities.
Across all four areas, I prioritize participatory and qualitative methods, international collaboration, and dissemination beyond academia, seeking to ensure that research findings are accessible and relevant to practitioners, policymakers, and the wider public.