Background
In the latter half of 2020, UiODoc started this work by setting up a general workflow to build an inventory of the contact details of current and active temporary staff representatives at the different administrative levels of UiO. This effort highlighted differences in how accessible and up to date this information is across Faculties and departments.
Given the large number of representatives at smaller administrative units and the decisive position of Faculty Boards in the realization of UiO policies, we decided to focus our initial efforts on the main and deputy representatives of temporary research staff in the UiO Faculty Boards.
In light of the intermediary role played by Faculty board representatives, we used informal meetings to examine the challenges they face regarding their relation to their constituents as well as the Faculty administration. More specifically we collected accounts of the experiences of representatives across Faculty Boards, which will highlight shared and specific bottlenecks in the current realization of UiO democracy. This process indicated how UiODoc, being at the intersection of many institutions across UiO, can provide a platform for all representatives to overcome these bottlenecks. This series of meetings lead to an inter-Faculty event towards the end of the Spring semester in 2021.
From 2021 to the spring of 2023 designated board members (representative officers) have been initiating contact with temporary staff representatives from different faculties at UiO and we have been having individual informal meetings.
Moving forward
Recently, starting in autumn 2024, UiODoC intends to hold biannual inter-faculty meetings with temporary staff representatives, replacing individual meetings with faculty representatives. This adjustment enables representation officers (formerly representative officers) to assume additional responsibilities, such as soliciting member input via surveys and social media polls and providing UiODoc input across different forums in the university, while still maintaining dialogue with temporary staff representatives.