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Ingunn Elise Myklebust
Photo: Eivind Senneset

Ingunn Elise Myklebust

Position

Professor

Affiliation

E-mail
ingunn.myklebust@uib.no
Phone number
+47 55589562
Visitor address
Magnus Lagabøtes plass 1
5010 Bergen
Postal address
P.O. Box 7806
NO-5020 Bergen
Norway

Ingunn Elise Myklebust

Position

Professor

Affiliation

Research groups

Research

Professor Ingunn Elise Myklebust has broad expertise in both administrative law and property law, with particular emphasis on municipal law, planning and building law, and aquaculture governance.

Professor Myklebust is the leader of Thematic Pillar II at the newly established COAST Law Center at the Faculty of Law (as of June 2025), responsible for research on ocean–coast interactions in environmental and resource management. She has also led the Research Group for Administrative Law for several years. In addition, Myklebust is affiliated with the Centre for Sustainable Area Management (CeSAM), a University of Bergen initiative supporting sustainable land and marine use, biodiversity, and nature conservation, and with the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET), an interdisciplinary research group at UiB focusing on climate and energy transition.

Myklebust is course coordinator for the elective courses Planning and Coastal Zone Management (5th year) and  Environmental Law (3rd year) at the Faculty of Law, and also teaches and lectures in Property Law and Intellectual Property Law, a compulsory course in the first year of the law programme. She is also responsible for supervising final-year students writing their master’s theses on related topics. Currently, she supervises Hanne Minde, working on a Ph.D. thesis on "private plans" under the Planning and Building Act, University of Bergen, PhD candidate Jannike Østlid, who is writing a dissertation on "property rights" as a means of governance at the University of Bergen; and PhD candidate Karen Tora Hjelmervik Nerbø, who is writing a dissertation on "cumulative impact" at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo and Karen Tora Hjelmervik Nerbø, writing a Ph.D. thesis on "cumulative impact" at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law.

Professor Myklebust has participated in several legislative committees and other central investigative work. Of recent date, the following can be mentioned: professional responsibility for a report to the Ministry of Climate and Environment, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, with legislative proposal for the introduction of rules on construction prohibition on peatlands in Norwegian law, delivered on April 30, 2025, https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/0ba4a78f68684e39a4bbe2fcc9d5588e/uib-alternative-innretninger-for-innforing-av-forbud-mot-nedbygging-av-myr-i-norsk-rett.pdf, carried out together with postdoc Siv Elén Vedvik; leadership of the report on the relationship between the Traffic Light System and the Quality Standard for Wild Salmon (2024); member of the  Cultural Environment Law Committee (2025), participating in an expert committee on ministerial disqualification (2023), and contributing to reports on legislative changes under the Planning and Building Act, including Investigation of causes of high time use in planning cases and proposals for more efficient processes (2025).

She is involved in interdisciplinary research projects, such as ECOBUDGETS (2025-2029), researching ways to integrate climate and nature budgets into administrative and political decisions at municipal and county levels. Previously, she led the GOVLAND research project ('Legal governance in land use planning' (2018-2022)) and contributed to PLANCOAST, which studied planning and concession law issues in the coastal zone (2018-2022), with articles on property law issues, aquaculture, and planning.

Background

Myklebust has a PhD from 2009, with the topic "Coastal Law and Public Governance of Land Use at Sea", which was published at Universitetsforlaget in 2010. The book discusses property rights and the coastal owner’s right to e.g. land reclamation, access by boat, salmon fishing, views, and protection against noise. The main theme of the book is what kind of protection such rights, based on old customs, have for new uses based on public licences, such as aquaculture, wind power, marinas, and organised tourism.

Professor Myklebust has held several positions in Bergen municipality, both as a legal adviser in the building department and the City council department for environment and urban development, where she was also head of section (1998–2000). She is also a licensed attorney at law and has worked at the municipal attorney in Bergen (2010–2011) and brought cases to court both on real estate law, labour law, and child protection law.

Myklebust has also held a part-time position at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences for several periods to help develop master's courses in property, land consolidation and planning law in addition to teach such courses on a new master's degree programme there. Myklebust has also taught planning law at Volda University College.

Outreach

In addition to more academic seminars and various forms of metropolitan conferences, she also gladly participated around the district as a lecturer at seminars and meetings with municipalities, county coun­cils, county governor's office, government sector bodies, interest organisations, etc. on topics con­cerning research or dissemination of research, such as e.g. seminar on planning law and aquaculture under the auspices of Rogaland County Municipality 28.08.18, TAU, seminar on planning under the auspices of the County Governor of Møre og Romsdal, Molde, 28.10.18, about Bergen seafront strategy at a seminar in Bergen Municipality, 26.08.20, (link) and the beach zone webinar 23.09.20 under the auspices of Norsk Friluftsliv (Norwegian Outdoors), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Friluftsrådenes Landsforbund (Outdoor Councils Association) and Oslofjorden Friluftsråd (Oslo Fjord Outdoor Council).  

September 2020: Online conference (shoreline) 

Teaching

Myklebust’s professional interests are land management law, municipal law, expropriation law, property law (including real estate law), natural resource and environmental law. Myklebust also has course responsibility in property law, municipal law and planning and building law at the Faculty of Law. Her teaching duties are related to development, lectures, exams and other follow-up of these three courses. 

Publications
Other presentation
Conference lecture
Working paper
Media feature article
Lecture
Media interview
Academic book chapter
Editorial/Leader article
Academic article
Letter to the editor
Academic literature review
Research report
Doctoral thesis (PhD)
Journal review
Professional article
Academic monograph
Conference poster
Podcast

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Projects

GOVLAND

“Legal governance in land use planning" [GOVLAND] will examine the core legal instruments for regulating the balance between national and municipal power in Norwegian land use planning. How the legal framework is and should be on land use planning, the interpretation of the rules and day by day management, can have a major impact on living conditions, infrastructure and sustainability. What are the legal requirements for effective, knowledge-based decision processes and what legal protection does local democracy have in a rapidly changing society, marked by Europeanisation, globalisation, privatisation, climate change and population growth? How can democracy and efficiency be balanced in municipal land use planning? The relative strength of public and private actors in the land use context is an integral part of the study.”
 

Objective

In an increasingly urbanising world, governments and international corporations strive to increase productivity of cities, recognized as economy growth hubs, as well as ensuring better quality of life and living conditions to citizens. Although significant effort is performed by international organisations, researchers, etc. to transform the challenges of Cities into opportunities, the visions of our urban future are trending towards bleak. Social services and health facilities are significantly affected in negative ways owed to the increase in urban populations (70% by 2050).
Air pollution and urban exacerbation of heat islands is exacerbating. Nature will struggle to compensate in the future City, as rural land is predicted to shrink by 30% affecting liveability. VARCITIES puts the citizen and the “human community” in the eye of the future cities’ vision. Future cities should evolve to be human centred cities. The vision of VARCITIES is to implement real, visionary ideas and add value by establishing sustainable models for increasing H&WB of citizens (children, young people, middle age, elderly) that are exposed to diverse climatic conditions and challenges around Europe (e.g. from harsh winters in Skelleftea-SE to hot summers in Chania-GR, from deprived areas in Novo mesto-SI to increased pollution in Malta) through shared public spaces that make cities liveable and welcoming.