It includes just under 1,400 PhD-students within the energy and petroleum areas. In the first part of the period, there were most PhD-students funded by petroleum-oriented programs, while after 2009, programs aimed at the energy area have financed the most PhD-students.
Close to 50 per cent of the PhD-students included in the analysis have a foreign citizenship. In recent years, the share of foreigners has increased to about two-thirds. Most of the PhD-students with foreign citizenship have a background from European countries. PhD-students from Asia also make up a large group. In recent years, there has been an increasing proportion of students from Asia and a corresponding decrease in students from Europe. It is particularly within the petroleum area that we see this shift in country background.
There is a clear majority of men among the PhD-students both within energy (66 per cent) and petroleum (69 per cent). The share of women has increased slightly in recent years in the energy area, while it has decreased a little in the petroleum area.
83 per cent of the PhD-students who started in the period 2005-2016 have completed their doctorate by the end of 2022. Men have a slightly higher completion rate than women: 85 per cent versus 79 per cent. The completion rate is a little higher among students financed by programs focused on energy (84 per cent) than for students within programs with focus on petroleum (81 per cent). The PhD-students in this analysis have a completion rate that is 5 percentage points higher than the overall average within natural sciences and technology.
PhD-students with Norwegian citizenship have a completion rate equal to the average. The same applies to those with a background from Asia and from Europe outside the Nordic countries, but the proportion who complete is a bit higher among students from Western European countries than for students from Eastern European countries.
The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has awarded two-thirds of the doctoral degrees in the energy area and half of the doctoral degrees in the petroleum area. 86 per cent of the doctoral degrees are classified either as technology or natural sciences, while around 10 per cent are within the social sciences.
Altogether, 80 per cent of those who have completed their doctorate were employed in Norway in 2021. Half of those with employment worked in academia, either in the higher education sector or in the institute sector. The other half were employed in many different industries. The industries that particularly employ those who have completed their degree are Professional, scientific and technical activities, Mining and quarrying and Manufacturing.
20 per cent of those who have completed their doctoral degree were not employed in Norway in 2021. Many have emigrated from Norway, which is reflected in the fact that 39 per cent of those with a foreign citizenship were not employed in Norway in 2021. The share of foreigners who are not working in Norway increases some years after completion of the doctoral degree. Among those with foreign citizenship who obtained their doctoral degree in the period 2008-2017, 47 per cent were not employed in Norway in 2021.