Lars Lien is president of the Norwegian Psychiatric Association and adviser to the National Competence Service for concurrent substance abuse and mental illness (ROP). He is a specialist in community medicine and in psychiatry and took his PhD in 2003 on a study of risk factors for mental health problems in adolescents with an immigrant background. He participates in and leads various research projects with topics ranging from health care research to basal neurobiology. He is affiliated with the Department of Health and Social Sciences at Inland University College as Professor and is consultant physician among the Sami population and Professor II at the Arctic University of Tromsø.