She has worked as a researcher with applied science projects and has been project leader and researcher in several research projects within the field of industry clusters, innovation, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. She has been project leader for internationalization in GCE Ocean Technology and has through her career emphasized building relations with regional industry actors and startup milieus. Pettersen has a special interest in bridging industry/entrepreneurial ecosystems and academia, through research, engaged scholarship and higher education. Her research field involves technology entrepreneurship, academic entrepreneurship, open innovation processes in B2B relations, and entrepreneurship education. She has engaged in research collaboration with University of Pretoria (UP) and Stellenbosch University (SU) since 2016. She (HVL) has been partner in and Intpart-project since 2019, with three Norwegian Universities and is currently project leader for an Utforsk-project with the same South African partners, involving reciprocal entrepreneurship internship programs, comparative research and interactive learning among entrepreneurial ecosystem actors.