Job description

 Gunnar Hartvigsen, PhD, is a professor at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway (UiT). He also serves as the Head of the Health Informatics and -Technology group (HIT), formerly known as the Medical Infor­matics & Telemedicine group (MI&T). Additionally, starting in 2023, Dr. Hartvigsen holds a position 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), and was affiliated with the Centre for e-health at UiA. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as professor at the Norwegian Centre for eHealth Research, University Hospital of North Norway (UNN). Earlier, from 2000 to 2015, he was a 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. Since 1989, he has held various positions at UiT, including assistant professor (1989-1991), associate professor (1991-1994), and professor (from 1994).
From 2005 to 2009, he was the Vice Dean for research and education at the Faculty of Science, UiT. He has held several honorary posts at the Department of Computer Science, including Head of Department, Vice Head of Department, and Head of Education. He has been a member of several boards and committees at the university, including deputy member of the board at UiT.
Dr. Hartvigsen was the chairman of the Norwegian Council for Computer Science from 2004 to 2006. He 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 as a board member of the Norwegian Society for Medical Informatics (FDH and later NorHIT). From 2007 to 2015, he was the director of Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (TTL), one of Norway’s first centres for research-based innovation (SFI). In the period 2024-2025 he is a member of the Norwegian Committee on Skill Needs (“Kompetansebehovsutvalget”).
He has supervised 96 master’s students and 18 PhD students. Dr. Hartvigsen is currently supervising or co-supervising 4 PhD students and 7 master’s students. Additionally, he has supervised 7 postdoctoral students at UNN. Since 1992, he has served on over 100 adjudication committees for faculty positions across Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and the USA, and has acted as a referee for numerous conferences, journals, and research councils.
Dr. Hartvigsen has also been a member of several doctoral adjudication committees in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands. He has participated in international expert panels for the evaluation of large-scale research applications with budgets of up to € 50 million in Sweden (VINNOVA) and Finland (Academy of Finland and TEKES). In 2020, he served on international evaluation panels for Horizon 2020 (Innovative Medicines Initiative) and Health Science.
In recent years, Dr. Hartvigsen has taught courses on Telemedicine and eHealth Systems, Medical Informatics, Electronic Health Records at the Master's and PhD levels, and Software engineering at the Bachelor's level. In addition, he has been teaching/organising several special curriculum courses for PhD students, including doing research and communicating research. Dr. Hartvigsen brings extensive experience in study administration from various universities, including the planning and management of study programs and courses.
In 2021, Dr. Hartvigsen was awarded NOK 6.3 million from DIKU (the Directorate for Internationalization and Quality Development in Higher Education) to establish an experience-based master's program in digital health services in collaboration with the health service in the Helgeland region.
Dr. Hartvigsen has received multiple grants from various organizations, including the Research Council of Norway [Tromsø Telemedicine Laboratory (NOK 240 million, 2007-2014 (NOK 80 million from RCN + approx. NOK 160 million from the partners)); Context-sensitive systems for mobile communication in hospitals (NOK 4,4 million, 2007-2010); DiPato - Distributed Electronic Patient Record (NOK 1,5 million, 2000-2004); and Global Distributed Diary (NOK 3,3 million, 1996-2001)], Helse Nord [Smartphones in Type-2 Diabetes Group Education Programs (NOK 2,8 million, 2014-2017); Moving pre-surgical planning from the hospital to the patient at home through electronic collaboration (eTeam-Surgery) (NOK 8,1 million, 2013-2016); Impact of Experience Sharing on Type 2 Diabetes Self-Management (NOK 2,5 million, 2011-2013); Self-help through a mobile ICT tool (NOK 2 million, 2005-2008)], Tromsø forskningsstiftelse [Mobile phone-based health information for people with diabetes (NOK 1,2 million, 2011-2014)], Regional Research Fund North-Norway [CADMOS – serious games for children with diabetes (NOK 3 millon, 2014-2016)], Horizon 2020 [WARIFA (EURO 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 and medical informatics. His work focuses on 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, HCI for mobile systems, digital patient communication, context-sensitive communication, physical activity sensors, m-health applications for people with intellectual disabilities, telemedicine systems in private homes, and motivational mechanisms in e-health.
From 1994 to 1995, Dr. Hartvigsen was on sabbatical leave at the University of Twente, Faculty of Computer Science, in the Netherlands. In the fall of 2006, he took another sabbatical at the Faculty of Medicine, Munich University of Technology and the Department of Health Science and Technology at Aalborg University. He served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Davis, from September to December 2011 and April to July 2012. From 2017 to 2018, he was a visiting professor at the Technical University of Valencia (UPV) in Spain, and from 2021 to 2022 at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. In June 2022 he was a visiting professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.
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 written more than 400 papers and reports covering a wide range of topics including telemedicine, electronic disease surveillance, electronic health records (EHRs), 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 900 contributions in the Norwegian publication database Cristin.
Dr. Hartvigsen has established extensive cooperation with several leading international research groups in medical informatics. As a result, he has co-authored scientific papers with more than 150 researchers from various countries, including 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 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 as a speaker on telemedicine and eHealth in several countries, including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greenland, Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, the USA, and Australia.
His h-index = 34 according to Google Scholar, i10-index = 85 and his publications have received over
6100 citations, of which more than 3200 since 2019.