Ellen Seip is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 civil servant.

She graduated from the University of Oslo

University of Oslo

The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...

 as cand.sociol. in 1976. She worked for Oslo

Oslo

Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

 municipality from 1977 to 1980, and was then hired by the Ministry of Social Affairs. She was promoted to assistant secretary in 1987, deputy under-secretary of State in 1999 and permanent under-secretary of State in 2001. The ministry was later renamed into the Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion

Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion

The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Labour is a Norwegian ministry established in 1916. It is responsible for the labour market, the working environment, pensions, welfare, social security, integration, immigration, asylum, minorities and the Sami...

.

Seip was a member of the board of the INAS

Norwegian Social Research

Norwegian Social Research is a social science research institute based in Oslo, Norway.It was established on 1 July 1996, as a merger between four institutes. It is subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research...

from 1990 to 1996.