The first public defences of the autumn are approaching. In this connection, we are now sending information about the decommissioning in the future. Please note that the infection situation in Bergen is unstable and there may be changes at short notice if the authorities report new measures.

Audience

We are now opening to the public at the public defences, with some restrictions. There is limited capacity in the auditoriums and we must comply with the “academic meter” in the same way as in teaching. Therefore, we will still only advertise the digital meeting room in the lookup, but the candidate/environment may invite people to come up to the capacity of the auditorium. There will also be a requirement that a list of attendees are kept for potential infection tracking. The list should be kept for a fortnight and then deleted. The main supervisor is responsible for infection control. In public defences with the audience in the hall, the possibility of questions from the digital audience is turned off.

Opposition and streaming

For autumn 2021, MED is still facilitating digital opposition. Opponents from outside Norway are not currently invited here. This has been decided in dialogue with the heads of department, but we will reconsider when the Government initiates stage 4 of the reopening. As a general rule, candidates who are staying abroad will also defend digitally this autumn. If individual candidates wish to come to Bergen, they must examine the entry rules themselves from where they are staying and bear the risk and possibly the cost of quarantine hotels. Opponents from Norway can come to Bergen if they wish, but we encourage everyone to look closely at the development of infection in Bergen and at the place of departure and make their assessments accordingly, even if one is vaccinated.

All public defences will continue to be streamed. Even where we have two Norwegian opponents and an audience in the audience, the public defence will nevertheless be streamed, both to make our public defence available to more people and to be able to easily turn into digital/hybrid public defences if one of the participants ends up in quarantine or for other reasons has to participate digitally.