Professor From started his professional career as a researcher in local and regional development and planning. He has been used to evaluate and assess the content and impact of regional planning in Norway as well as the other Nordic countries. As deputy head in the Ministry of Justice his main responsibility was administrative reform, information technology, and modernisation of the police, courts, and prisons. At the BI Norwegian School of Management he was a driving force behind setting up a new department for public sector research and education programs (Department of Public Governance).

Research areas
His main research interests has been in various aspects of EU policy; police cooperation and EU integration, EU competition policy and public monopolies, EU and local government and in modernisation of public government; introduction of New Public Management reforms, compulsory competitive tendering, and the changing role of public monopolies.

Teaching areas
In all these areas he has had responsibility for developing and conducting education programs particularly for master degree students, many of them part time students from the civil service. He has also acted as a consultant for a substantial range of public sector institutions in these areas.