Start-up
The Centre for Land Tenure Studies was opened at NMBU (earlier UMB) on the 27th of June 2011 resulting from a joint initiative by researchers at the Department of International Environment and Development (Noragric), the School of Economics and Business, and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning. The start-up was facilitated by a grant from Centre for Property Rights and Development at the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority. In 2012 CLTS was joined by the Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management.

Mission
The Centre for Land Tenure Studies (CLTS) at NMBU is established to further the study of land tenure. Land tenure studies define a broad and complex field of study cutting across many disciplines related to ownership and management of land resources and investments on land. For CLTS this entails, but is not limited to, the following activities:

• Provide a common arena for discussing land tenure issues, including a series of seminars directed to present new research or important theoretical perspectives. This may be designed as part of an educational program.
• Promulgate a joint series of working papers.
• Support international publication of articles and books.
• Develop and conduct joint courses at both Master and PhD level.
• Initiate and support exchange of researchers.
• Participate in research networks related to land tenure.
• Maintain a public list of collaborating institutions and researchers.
• Initiate and develop applications for research funds to support basic research on land tenure both by our own efforts and in collaboration with other research groups working on land tenure questions.

In short, we may say that the mission of the Centre for Land Tenure studies is:

• to enhance collaboration across departments at NMBU;
• to strengthen the visibility of NMBU activities within the field of land tenure;
• to strengthen NMBU’s international collaboration and networks within the field;
• to contribute to research and knowledge generation on land tenure issues;
• to help build capacity in the South and in Norway within the field;
• to disseminate policy debates, lessons, and
• to contribute to policy.

In its activities, the centre will use English as its working language as far as practically possible.  

Unless otherwise stated on the individual works, the CLTS work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.