SOF Nord is one of five regional centres for care research in Norway, established by the Ministry of Health in 2008. Our mandate is to produce, collect, and disseminate knowledge about care and caregiving in municipalities within our region.

Produce: As our name gives away, we are a centre for research, indicating that at the core of our activities lies the production of academic knowledge. Our research group includes several projects, and we have researchers from multiple disciplinary backgrounds drawing on a number of well-known methods for empirical, applied research.

We have broad experience with research in and with municipalities. From our joint national network of five SOF centres, a research handbook has been developed to help municipalities become familiar with the research process and collaborate with researchers.

Collect: To collect already existing knowledge on care and caregiving, the five SOF centres have established the national Care Library. The Care Library collects and summarizes knowledge for health and care services in municipalities.

Disseminate: For the dissemination of research to the field, but which should also be available to a largely Norwegian-speaking municipal sector, we saw the need for a separate scientific channel. In 2015, SOF established The Journal of Care Research (TFO) with the publication of practice-oriented research in the form of both scientific articles, professional articles, comment articles, book reviews, and other research-related content intended for health and care services in municipalities.

In addition to TFO, we have the conference series "Care Research Conference" where we organize a national conference in the field every other year. The Care Research Conference is open to all relevant R&D work including development projects from the municipalities themselves.