Kristin Bakken is the general director of NIKU from September 2017. Previously she held the position as director at The Norwegian directorate for cultural heritage (Riksantikvaren).

Kristin’s academic training is as a language historian, with a masters’ degree, doctoral degree and post doctoral position from the University of Oslo. She held the position as director for the project Norsk Ordbok 2014 at the University of Oslo for six years before she moved on, and was appointed director of research and special collections at the National library in 2008. After four years at the National library, she has five years of experience from the Directorate for Cultural Heritage.

After having served 15 years as a director in various institutions responsible for different forms of cultural heritage, Kristin has now dedicated her efforts and energy to managing. Nevertheless, her experience with research topics such as place names, medieval philology, lexicology and language change, has provided her with a genuine interest in and understanding for research, especially historically oriented research. Her responsibility for cultural heritage at the directorate went well with her frame of academic interest, and she was the main editor of the academic publication Preserving the stave churches. Craftsmanship and research, issued by Pax in 2016.

Kristin has extensive experience from boards and committees, she has been a member of the Norwegian UNESCO Commission and of the National committee for UNESCO’s Memory of the World. She has been on the board for a project on Musical heritage, for Bygg og bevar (a program that disseminates information on the conservation of historical buildings), the project Beacon for freedom of expression, Collegium medievale, association for medievalists, and the institute for cultural history and oriental language at the University of Oslo. She has worked with standardization of place names, and she is a publicly appointed consultant and currently sit as member of the appeal committee. She has also worked as a consultant for the project Henrik Ibsen’s writings.