Greeting from the Rector

It is a great pleasure and honour for me to welcome you to Bergen, to the University of Bergen, and to the business history congress on "Transactions and Interactions - the Flow of Goods, Services and Information."

The theme of the conference is important and interesting, and Bergen is indeed a proper place for discussing transactions and interactions. Bergen has long traditions as a meeting-place and a center for trade and business among national and international actors. For centuries, during the Middle Ages, Bergen was an important city within the Hanseatic League. The most important arena for the hanseatic trade was the wharf Bryggen, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Just as Bergen always has had an outward-looking flair to it, so too has our university. We have a distinctively international profile that involves close cooperation with other universities all over the world. We encourage both students and academic staff to go abroad, and we urge our faculties and departments to open their doors for foreign students and researchers coming to us. A number of conferences and meetings, such as this congress, add significantly to this international profile.

University of Bergen is a young institution, founded only in 1946. But the university grew out of a much longer academic and scientific tradition which had evolved within Bergen Museum since its foundation in 1825. A number of internationally famed scholars were affiliated with the museum. Among them we find Armauer Hansen, who discovered the source of leprosy, Frithjof Nansen, who became world famous for his polar expeditions and arctic research, and Vilhelm Bjerknes, commonly regarded as the founder of modern weather forecasting – and thus naturally from Bergen, where we have a lot of weather!

The city of Bergen and the University of Bergen have close links in many respects – not least physically. We are proud to be the only university in Norway located in the heart of the city. My wish is that you will all become a bit familiar both with the university environment and with the city of Bergen as such during the congress, so that you go back to your home institutions not only wiser from the congress itself – which I feel confident you will be – but also a tiny bit richer in esthetical experiences.

I wish all of you good luck and all the best for your congress!

Sigmund Grønmo
Rector