ABSTRACT
In 1968, students in Nordic welfare states protested against stiff hierarchies in universities and in society. They also took part in general leftist mobilisation, spurred by national and international currents, notably the Vietnam War. The students' protests influenced the modernisation of the Nordic universities in the years around 1968. The student movement in Norway began as a general political mobilisation in mid-1960s, centring on the Norwegian Student Society in Oslo, a time-honoured political scene of the national academic elite. When the student revolt broke out, the University of Oslo was about to transform and democratise its system of academic self-government. The level of conflict between the students and the academic and government authorities was even lower in Trondheim than in Copenhagen and Oslo in 1968 and the ensuing years. One of the reasons for this was that the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) was explicitly kept out of the reforms suggested by Ottosen Committee, at least in its main report.
