In the report, we look at how academic staff at Norwegian higher education institutions divided their working hours between different tasks in the academic year 2024–2025, and how many hours they worked on average per week. The results are compared with previous time use surveys from 2016 and 2021. Respondents were asked to divide their work into the following categories: Research and development (R&D), Applications (new category, former included in R&D), Academic supervision, Teaching at own institution, Other administration, Dissemination, Museum and collections, Artistic activities, PhD courses (new) and Other. Teaching and R&D are generally the largest categories.
Research fellows spend most time on R&D
Research fellows spend the largest proportion of their working time on R&D, at 68 per cent, while they are little involved in applications. For professors, the R&D share is 29 per cent plus 8 per cent for applications for R&D funds. It is the university/college lecturers who have the highest proportion of teaching with 58 per cent. The report shows how time allocation varies between positions, gender, disciplines and institutions, among other things.
Researchers work a lot
The 2025 time use survey shows that academic staff at Norwegian higher education institutions work far more than a regular working week of 37.5 hours. Most often, academic leaders and professors state that they work between 46 and 47 hours a week. Men work 0.6 hours more than women per week. Non-Norwegian researchers work slightly more than Norwegian researchers, but here the differences are small. Compared to responses from 2021, the average number of hours has decreased for most positions. This is particularly related to two factors: 2021 was an exceptional year with the corona pandemic and many worked extra to put digital teaching in place. In addition, the instructions for the 2025 survey made it clearer that only work in the main position should be included.
Many researchers work in their spare time
The time use survey contained a free text field that 20 per cent of the respondents used. It appears that many find the working day demanding with long days, many administrative tasks and they often work evenings, weekends and holidays to get tasks done and to have uninterrupted time for R&D.
New facts about factors that affect research
For the first time, we have figures that show the effect of responsibility for children on working hours and we see that this affects women more than men. It is also the first time that we have asked about social background (parents' educational level) for the part of the research staff who do not have Norwegian citizenship. We see that many non-Norwegian academics have a high proportion of have parents with a long higher education (over four years), and that those whose parents have a lower level of education work more.