Digital development and security: Karianne Tung met stakeholders in Stavanger

The meeting, organised by the Stavanger Chamber of Commerce, brought together a limited number of specially invited stakeholders from industry, academia, and clusters for an open and practice-oriented discussion on political barriers to pace and secure digital development.

The initiative was driven by a growing need for transformation across both the public and private sectors. Several participants pointed out that many organisations have rapidly adopted artificial intelligence and digital solutions, yet the expected impact in terms of increased productivity, value creation, and development often fails to materialise. At the same time, the geopolitical situation—and the need for secure data handling, digital sovereignty, and robust regulatory frameworks—was highlighted as an increasingly important prerequisite for safe and sustainable development.

From a regional perspective, Pumps & Pipes was highlighted as a concrete example of how cross-sector collaboration can work over time. For many years, the initiative has functioned as a regional transformation arena, where expertise from energy, technology, and healthcare comes together to address new challenges across established sectors

Three political barriers to pace and secure development

In the dialogue with the minister, Arild Kristensen, COO of Norway Health Tech, highlighted three key political barriers that today slow down both pace and secure development:

1. Incentives and funding are not aligned with the need for change
   Current funding and incentive models largely reward operations and activity rather than impact and transformation. This makes it difficult to adopt solutions that prevent, streamline, or change work processes—even when the need is clearly documented.
2. Regulatory frameworks must be simplified and clarified
   There is a need to identify laws and regulations that in practice hinder effective use of technology, and to assess what can be simplified, removed, or addressed through better information and guidance—rather than through new requirements and regulations.
3. From local impact to broader implementation
   When solutions have been implemented in one place and have demonstrated clear benefits and value, they should be able to be adopted elsewhere without new, parallel assessments. Today, pilots and decision-making processes are repeated in many places, slowing down both scaling and pace.

– Scaling must to a greater extent become a requirement, not a local choice, Kristensen emphasised during the dialogue.

Arild Kristensen, COO of Norway Health Tech, used the opportunity to highlight three key challenges affecting the pace of digitalisation and transformation in the healthcare sector

Political dialogue is an important part of the cluster’s work

For Norway Health Tech, dialogue meetings like this are an important part of our efforts to connect policymaking, industry development, and implementation. As Norway’s largest health cluster, we work continuously to bring experiences from industry, academia, and the healthcare sector into dialogue with national authorities.

The meeting in Stavanger demonstrates how political dialogue can take place close to environments that are working with transformation in practice—and how such conversations contribute to a better understanding of the framework conditions that are actually needed to succeed.