Susana Vilhena

Susana Vilhena is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Welfare, Management and Organisation at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). Her research focuses on social policy, frontline work, and the implementation of activation policies in social assistance systems. She holds a PhD in The Study of Professions from OsloMet, alongside Master's degrees in Social Work and Social Policy from institutions in Norway and Portugal.

Her academic interests include mandatory activation policies, benefit sanctions, street-level bureaucracy, and qualitative research methods. She teaches courses on social work theory, methods, and professional practice, including 'Social work and society' and 'Methods and arenas in social work'.

Recent research emphasizes cross-national comparisons of welfare conditionality, particularly contrasting Norwegian and Portuguese approaches to activation measures. Her work highlights how frontline workers navigate professional discretion within policy frameworks, with a focus on maternalistic practices in Scandinavian welfare systems.

Key contributions include studies on young social assistance recipients' experiences with mandatory activation and analyses of how frontline sanctions are implemented in Norwegian social work. She is affiliated with the Social Work Research Group and has published extensively in journals like European Journal of Social Work and Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning.