Job description

 Gunnar Hartvigsen, PhD, has been affiliated with the University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) since 1989. He is Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, where he served as Assistant Professor from 1989 to 1991, Associate Professor from 1991 to 1994, and Professor since 1994. He also leads the Health Informatics and -Technology (HIT) group, formerly the Medical Infor­matics & Telemedicine (MI&T) group.
From 2023 to 2025, Dr. Hartvigsen served as Professor (Senior Researcher) at The Helgeland Hospital Trust (Helgelandssykehuset HF). From 2018 to 2022, he was Professor at the Department of Health and Nursing Science, Faculty of Health- and Sport Science, University of Agder (UiA), where he was also affiliated with the Centre for eHealth. Between 2016 and 2017, he held a professorship at the Norwegian Centre for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway (UNN). Earlier, from 2000 to 2015, he was Professor at the Nor­weg­ian Centre for Integrated Care and Tele­medi­cine (NST) at UNN.
Dr. Hartvigsen earned both his MSc and PhD degrees in Com­puter Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence, from UiT. Before his tenure at the Department of Computer Science at UiT, he was a Research Fellow at the Bodø Graduate School of Business, Nor­way, from 1987 to 1989.
From 2005 to 2009, Dr. Hartvigsen served as Vice Dean for Research and Education at UiT's Faculty of Science. He has also held several academic leadership roles at the Department of Computer Science, including Head of Department, Deputy Head of Department, and Head of Education. In addition, he has served on numerous boards and committees, including as a deputy member of the UiT board.
Dr. Hartvigsen chaired the Norwegian Council for Computer Science from 2004 to 2006 and was a member of the National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (NENT) from 2010 to 2017. From 2005 to 2013, he served on the board of the Norwegian Society for Medical Informatics (FDH, later NorHIT). He was the Director of the Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (TTL), one of Norway’s first 14 centres for Research-based Innovation (SFI), from 2007 to 2015. During 2024-2025, he was a member of the Norwegian Committee on Skill Needs (“Kompetansebehovsutvalget”). Since 2026, he has been a member of the National Commission for the Investigation of Research Misconduct.
Dr. Hartvigsen has supervised 106 master’s students, 18 PhD candidates, and seven postdoctoral students. He currently supervises or co-supervises four PhD students and two master’s students. Since 1992, he has served on more than 100 assessment committees for academic positions in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and the United States. He has also acted as a reviewer for numerous conferences, journals, and research councils.
He has served on doctoral assessment committees in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and has participated in international expert panels evaluating major research applications with budgets of up to €50 million for VINNOVA in Sweden and Academy of Finland and TEKES in Finland. In 2020, he served on two international evaluation panels for Horizon 2020, including Innovative Medicines Initiative and Health Science.
In recent years, Dr. Hartvigsen has taught courses in telemedicine and eHealth Systems, medical informatics, digital home-care services, and software engineering at bachelor's, master's, and PhD levels. He has also developed and organized several PhD-level special-curriculum courses, including courses on conducting and communicating research. In addition, he has extensive experience in study administration from various universities, including the planning and management of academic programs and courses.
In 2021, Dr. Hartvigsen was awarded € 573,000 [NOK 6.3 million] from the Directorate for Internationalization and Quality Development in Higher Education (DIKU) to establish an experience-based master's program in digital health services in collaboration with health-service providers in the Helgeland region.
Dr. Hartvigsen has received multiple grants from various organizations, including the Research Council of Norway {Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (€ 21.82 mill. [NOK 240 mill.], 2007-2015 (divided into € 7.27 mill. [NOK 80 mill.] from RCN + approx. € 14.55 mill. [NOK 160 mill.] from the partners)); Context-sensitive systems for mobile communication in hospitals (€ 400 000 [NOK 4.4 mill.], 2007-2010); DiPato - Distributed Electronic Patient Record(€ 136 000 [NOK 1.5 mill.], 2000-2004); and Global Distributed Diary (€ 300 000 [NOK 3.3 mill.], 1996-2001)}, Helse Nord {Smartphones in Type-2 Diabetes Group Education Programs (€ 255 000 [NOK 2.8 mill.], 2014-2017); Moving pre-surgical planning from the hospital to the patient at home through electronic collaboration (eTeam-Surgery) (€ 736 000 [NOK 8.1 mill.], 2013-2016); Impact of Experience Sharing on Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management (€ 227 000 [NOK 2.5 mill.], 2011-2013); Self-help through a mobile ICT tool (€ 182 000 [NOK 2 mill.], 2005-2008)}, Tromsø forskningsstiftelse {Mobile phone-based health information for people with diabetes (€ 109 000 [NOK 1.2 mill.], 2011-2014)}, Regional Research Fund North-Norway {CADMOS – serious games for children with diabetes (€ 273 000 [NOK 3 mill.], 2014-2016)}, Horizon 2020 {WARIFA (€ 710 000, 2021-2024)}. At UNN, Dr. Hartvigsen has contributed to several EU projects, including Renewing Health (2010–2013), FI-STAR (2013–2015), and HEIR (2020-2023).
Dr. Hartvigsen's research interests span various aspects of telemedicine, medical informatics and digital health. His work includes electronic disease surveillance; self-help systems for people with chronic diseases; social media and mixed reality social computer games for people with chronic conditions; medical sensor systems; human-computer interaction for mobile systems; digital patient communication; context-sensitive communication; physical activity sensors; m-health applications for people with intellectual disabilities; telemedicine systems for private homes; and motivational mechanisms in e-health.
His international experience includes sabbatical leave at the University of Twente, Faculty of Computer Science, the Netherlands, from 1994 to 1995, and the Faculty of Medicine, Munich University of Technology, Germany, and the Department of Health Science and Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark, in 2006. He served as Visiting Professor at the University of California, Davis, from September to December 2011 and from April to July 2012. He also served as Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Valencia, Spain, from 2017 to 2018; at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, from 2021 to 2022; and at Aalborg University, Denmark, in June 2022.
Dr. Hartvigsen has an extensive scientific output. He has authored three books: “The Researcher’s Handbook”, “Computer Ethics” and “Lessons learned from 25 years with telemedicine in Northern Norway” (the last book is available in both English and Russian editions). He has also authored more than 400 scientific papers and reports covering a wide range of topics including telemedicine, electronic disease surveillance, electronic health records, self-help systems for people with chronic diseases, intelligent homes, dis­tributed applications, software agents, adaptive user interfaces, file systems, educa­tional software, knowledge-based systems, and ethics. He has recorded more than 1,000 contributions in the Norwegian Research Information Repository.
Through extensive international cooperation, Dr. Hartvigsen has co-authored publications with more than 150 researchers worldwide, including colleagues affiliations with the University of Washington, Seattle, USA; Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA; University of California, Davis, USA; University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, USA; Columbia University, New York, USA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA; Technische Universität München, Germany; Technical University of Valencia, Spain; University of Geneva, Switzerland; Aalborg University, Denmark; and Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
Dr. Hartvigsen has been a member of Academia Borealis, Northern Norway Academy of Science, since its inception in 2001. In 2016, he was elected as a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (NTVA). In 2024, Hartvigsen was appointed a Fellow of the International Academy of Artificial Intelligence Sciences (AAIS) in recognition of his work in telemedicine and medical informatics.
In 2014, he received the “hjernekraft pris” (Brainpower Award) from Forskerforbundet’s (the Norwegian Association of Researchers) in recognition of his contribution to self-help systems for treating people with diabetes. Dr. Hartvigsen is featured in the “Biographical Lexicon of Medical Informatics” (2015) and is listed in “Who's Who in Ethics” (Global Ethics Observatory, unesco.org).
He has been invited to speak on telemedicine and eHealth in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, the United States, and Australia.
According to Google Scholar, Dr. Hartvigsen has an h-index of 39 and an i10-index of 98. His publications have received more than 7,300 citations, including more than 3,400 citations since 2021.