It was established with support from the Research Council of Norway as an independent entity, and is not part of the ordinary structure of the university.
It was originally a research centre, and started offering educational programmes in women's studies/gender studies in 2003 and 2011.
The Centre for Women's Studies (Norwegian: Senter for kvinneforskning; SFK) was established in 1986 by the Research Council of Norway, as a temporary project that was extended for another trial period in 1990.
[1] The future of the centre has been debated several times in light of its originally temporary status and funding, and there have been proposals to integrate the centre's staff into an institute at the Faculty of Humanities such as the Department of Philosophy or transfer it to another institution.
"[4] A 2008 book by Maud Eduards (a former visiting professor at the centre) and other Swedish gender studies scholars also included a critical analysis of Jørgen Lorentzen in a chapter titled "Bättre med män" [Men are better].