The scholarship is highly competitive, and is awarded to a current student, or recent graduate of Oslo University.
[4] [5] [6] The idea for a scholarship fund enabling students from Royal Frederik University, (now University of Oslo) to study for one year at Wadham College in Oxford was conceived in 1919 by a young alumnus of the college, who during the war years 1914–18 had held the post of British vice-consul at Kristiansund in Møre og Romsdal, Norway.
Arthur Jayne had married Fredrikke Marie Cathrine von Munthe af Morgenstierne, daughter of Professor Bredo Henrik von Munthe af Morgenstierne (1851–1930), Rector of the University of Oslo (1912–1918).
As with famous Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, he gave NOK 5000.- towards the establishment of a Norwegian Oxford Scholarship Fund.
October 1945 to Professor Didrik Arup Seip (1884–1963), then Rector of Oslo University, in the following words: At the time of the first world war – - – a considerable amount of ‘Allied’ propaganda material, sent to Norway and intended to inform Norwegian opinion about the war, proved ill-adapted to enlist the understanding sympathy of those who had previously had cultural or business contacts with the nations in conflict with the Allies.
The experience seemed to indicate the great importance of any educational facilities which would bring the youth of Norway and Britain into really close association with each other.
It struck me that one useful step in that direction could be some permanent arrangement which would enable Norwegian students to participate in the typically English form of university life that exists in the college system of Oxford and Cambridge.
Since 1981 the Committee has organised an annual dinner with a guest of honour from Oxford University, who has also given one or more lectures locally in Oslo.