Ivan Harsløf

Ivan Harsløf serves as Associate Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University's Department of Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Policy within the Faculty of Social Sciences. He joined the institution in 2006 (then HiOA) and has held leadership roles including Managing Director of the Group for Inclusive Social Welfare (2006-2010), acting research leader for Care, Health and Welfare program (2010-2012), and Assistant Dean for research since 2011.

His academic credentials include a Master in Social Science and International Studies from Aalborg University (1998) and PhD in Sociology from the University of Oslo (2007), with extended research stays at Sonoma State University, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and Università Milano-Bicocca. Previous positions include roles at Danish National Centre for Social Research and Norwegian Social Research.

Harsløf's research critically examines comparative welfare state dynamics, social service organization, health inequalities, poverty, and European social policy through lenses of cross-national comparison, active social policies, and emerging social risks. His work consistently addresses the tension between universal welfare principles and evolving societal challenges in Nordic and European contexts.

Recent publications (2022-2025) reveal strong thematic continuity in analyzing hybrid social work practices, activation policies, inflation impacts on welfare systems, and transnational labor mobility. These works demonstrate interdisciplinary engagement across social work, sociology, and public policy, with particular emphasis on knowledge contestation in professional practice and adaptation of welfare models to new social risks.

He actively contributes to research administration including EU cooperation agreements, research ethics, strategy development, and infrastructure. As educator, he teaches Comparative Social Welfare Theory and Concepts in the Master's program in International Social Welfare and Health Policy.

Harsløf participates in the Globalisation and Social Sustainability research group and has led projects like EUROSHIP (Closing Gaps in Social Citizenship), focusing on social resilience and citizenship gaps across Europe.