The Norwegian government has been rocked by a plagiarism scandal involving one of its ministers. Ingvild Kjerkol, the country’s health minister, resigned following an investigation by Nord University in Bodoe that found she had plagiarized part of her master’s thesis.
Kjerkol and her co-author had claimed they did not intentionally plagiarize, but the university disagreed. The resignation marks the second incident of a government member facing plagiarism allegations this year, with Sandra Borch stepping down as the minister for research and higher education in January after it was discovered that parts of her thesis were copied without attribution.
The coalition government led by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has faced criticism over its handling of these incidents, as well as other issues such as a loss in local elections to the conservative Hoeyre party for the first time since 1924. This defeat, along with recent scandals surrounding government members, has put pressure on the coalition and raised concerns about governance and integrity within the Norwegian government.
