Strategy
Values and strategy 2026-2035
Who We Are
Music shapes people. Music carries cultures, creates communities, challenges and comforts, gives meaning, and opens up new worlds.
NTNU Music develops, preserves, and disseminates music and music-related knowledge, while educating people who carry this work forward.
Music is our way of contributing to a better world.
We are performers, musicologists, and music technologists working side by side. This breadth reflects the diversity of music itself. We are strong in disciplinary specialization, and we enrich one another through interdisciplinary collaboration.
We are the only place in Norway where jazz, classical music, musicology, and music technology are developed under one roof, and where these academic and artistic communities meet, challenge and inspire one another, and create new forms of expression.
Our Values
We are a place where people come together in and through music. We believe in presence: that what happens between people in the same room cannot be replaced. We believe in collaboration as a way of working, not only as a musical practice. We believe that security and academic challenge are not opposites; they are prerequisites for one another.
We believe that diversity among students and academic communities is a strength, and we actively work to make music and music education accessible to more people.
We are creative in exploration, constructive in collaboration, critical in thought, and respectful in our interactions with one another and with the musical cultures of which we are part. Wherever we are in the world, we make ourselves visible and heard; we are proud to be NTNU Music.
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We conduct research and create at a high international level
Research, artistic practice, and scholarly and artistic development work are at the core of what NTNU Music is. We build strong and recognized environments where students, staff, and doctoral candidates together explore and develop questions and practices that matter to music, culture, and society.
We secure external funding for relevant projects, publish and communicate through appropriate channels, and participate actively in national and international contexts.
We use technology consciously, critically, and purposefully: as a tool for music, knowledge, and people, not the other way around.
We educate people who carry music forward
The most important thing we do is educate and shape people. We do so thoroughly, with high standards and with deep respect for what happens when people meet in and through music, when they explore, create, ask questions, and challenge one another.
Collaboration, in the broadest sense of the word, is fundamental to everything we do.
Academic depth and educational commitment are, for us, two sides of the same coin. Each discipline has its own distinctive character and provides education at a high level.
Our students are prepared for a changing world of work, where most will build portfolio careers and combine several roles, such as performers, educators, researchers, producers, technologists, and cultural leaders. We take active responsibility for understanding the professional fields for which we educate and for making career pathways clear to our students.
We strengthen music as a force in society
NTNU Music is part of the cultural sector we educate for, regionally, nationally, and internationally. We participate, produce, take positions, and collaborate across culture, education, research, and society.
We produce and communicate music, and knowledge about music, in every arena where music can reach people. We meet people where they are, with music and knowledge that enrich and move them. We continually expand the spaces in which we operate and find new ways of bringing music and knowledge out into the world.
We take responsibility for ensuring that music-related knowledge and artistic practice have a voice in public debate. We help shape informed discussions about music, culture, and society. We strengthen democratic and cultural resilience, promote quality of life and health, and contribute to sustainable development.
Conditions for success
In order to achieve our ambitions, we need:
- active and collegial research, development, and artistic environments whose work is made visible and strengthened through purposeful collaboration with external partners, ranging from concert curators to funding bodies, both locally and internationally.
- a shared music building with dedicated identity-building spaces and meeting places that foster academic and social community.
- students and staff being present on campus to meet through collaboration, ensemble work, and interaction.
- communication through shared platforms and common systems.
- an administration with strong structures and effective ways of working, serving as the institute’s hub and providing students and staff with security, support, and high-quality guidance.