SINTEF

SINTEF (Norwegian: Stiftelsen for industriell og teknisk forskning), headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, is the largest independent research organisation in Scandinavia. Every year, SINTEF supports research and development at 2,000 or so Norwegian and overseas companies via its research and development activity.

The acronym SINTEF means "The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research". SINTEF was established at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) in Trondheim in 1950 and expanded rapidly in the following years. The largest expansion came in 1993 when the "Centre for Industrial Research" in Oslo merged with SINTEF and created the SINTEF Oslo campus.

SINTEF has approximately 2000 (2015) employees, most of whom are located in Trondheim, and approximately 350 of whom are in Oslo. There are also offices in Bergen, Stavanger, Tromsø, Raufoss and Ålesund, and Hirtshals, Denmark (the Hirtshals location being a laboratory installation).

SINTEF works in close cooperation with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim and with the University of Oslo (UiO). The cooperation with NTNU involves personnel from NTNU working on SINTEF projects while SINTEF staff teaches at NTNU. In addition, there is extensive use of shared laboratories and equipment. More than 500 persons are employed both by NTNU and SINTEF.

In 2015, 16 per cent of SINTEF's turnover came from commissions outside of Norway. Approximately 40 percent of the international turnover comes from research programmes in the EU. These projects have a high priority as SINTEF recognize the necessity of participating in multi-national knowledge development, and because the projects provide access to important networks. SINTEF had in 2015 employees from 70 different countries and customers in 54 countries.