For the University of Bergen (UiB) and for the Academia Europaea Bergen Hub, the seminar and ERC board meeting in Bergen on 26th-27th June marked both the end of the first half of 2024 and the beginning of summer. It also concluded a very active season for the AE Bergen Hub.

Our Academic Director Eystein Jansen, who is also the Vice-President for Physical Sciences and Engineering at the ERC, played a key role in bringing the ERC Board to our hometown of Bergen at the close of the spring semester.

“Frontier research is key to securing Europe’s role in the world, in terms of providing more innovations in society, solving global challenges and securing democratic processes. It has been said that that the creation of the ERC is the best European innovation of recent times, and I think I subscribe to that view.” Eystein Jansen said in his welcome speech at the meeting.

Science diplomacy during crises

In 2024, Academia Europaea Bergen has focused extensively on mapping the conditions for scientific cooperation and science diplomacy during geopolitical crises, with a special focus on Arctic relations. Our report The Future of Science Diplomacy in the Arctic, published in 2023, has led to the Rethinking Arctic collaboration project, funded by a 400 000 NOK grant from UArctic. The project team includes renowned scientists from Europe, Canada and the USA.

The Rethinking Arctic Collaboration project was presented at the Arctic Circle Berlin Forum, on 8^th May providing an opportunity for team members to meet in person. The project’s aim is to engage with stakeholders and produce a comprehensive report. Outreach is important, and our proposal for an event at the 2024 Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík, Iceland, from 17th-19th October, was recently accepted amidst strong competition.

Academia Europaea Bergen is committed to expanding our work in Science Diplomacy and Arctic Relations. We have submitted a pre-application for a grant from Nordforsk to fund a 3-4 year project titled Arctic knowledge and knowledge systems in flux – threats and coping strategies for a sustainable Arctic. If awarded, this project will be a truly Nordic effort, with partners from Norway, Finland and Sweden, as well as Trans-Atlantic connections including experts from Canada and the US.

In addition to these major projects, spring 2024 saw Academia Europaea Bergen continue to co-organise a well-established meeting series (mainly held in Norwegian) together with the Bergen offices of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences (NTVA Bergen) and The Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals (Tekna Bergen). Other collaborations included the Horizon Lectures series at UiB and the Arctic Frontiers Conference.

With this summary of our activities at Academia Europaea Bergen, we wish all Members, collaborators and friends a nice summer!

 

Working group members, as well as external keynotes and commentators, offered new perspectives to the “Rethinking Arctic Collaboration”-project from Academia Europaea Bergen, when the project was presented at a session at Arctic Circle Berlin, May 8^th. The panel discussion also added new context.

The first keynote of the session was from Melody Brown Burkins, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at the John Sloan Dickey Center, Dartmouth.

– What you’ll hear today during our session is that, even in our group, we are not all defining science diplomacy and cooperation challenges in the same way, but we all want to see a future with shared Arctic science diplomacy goals. We want to see if we can learn what paths to future Arctic science cooperation will work. And we want to see Arctic science done with just, ethical, and inclusive Arctic governance, Melody Brown Burkins said in her introduction.

She highlighted that an ethical and equitable future for Arctic science diplomacy would have to include Arctic Indigenous Peoples in both knowledge creation and diplomatic decision-making.

Two objectives

She described the foremost challenges of future models of Arctic science diplomacy to be ensuring primarily two objectives:

– The practice of science consistently, ethically, and equitably includes the engagement of diverse knowledge systems – most specifically Arctic Indigenous Knowledge systems – to inform Arctic policy, and:

– The practice of diplomacy consistently, ethically, and equitably supporting governance models where leaders of recognized Arctic Indigenous Peoples organizations wield decision-making power alongside leaders of Arctic Nations.

– This is a goal for Arctic science diplomacy we can address now, regardless of full Arctic Council cooperation, Melody Brown Burkins said.

On the situation resulting from missing Russians climate data following the current sanctions, she said:

– I do not think more climate data is the sole answer to the existential threat we are facing of a warming earth, eroding coastlines, permafrost thaw, sea level rise, the loss of sea ice, and the rise of powerful storms across the globe. Because we know what the science is telling us. We have known what the science has been telling us since the 1950s. We need to move to low-carbon, net zero economies as soon as humanly possible.

The second keynote of the session was Frode Nilssen, professor at Nord University Business School and research professor at Fridtjof Nansens Institute.

– The current change in the geopolitical situation affecting Arctic collaboration have been taking place gradually over the last two decades. This is not a new situation, even as it has been amplified by the terrible, Russian aggression in Ukraine, thus creating an entirely new situation, particularly in the European Arctic, Nilssen emphasized.

Nilssen drew a parallel between science diplomacy and another, continuing collaboration between Norway and Russia, namely the joint fisheries commission, deciding on the annual quotas of the fish stock.

– This collaboration rests on scientific advice drawn from solid research over time and has also been able to continue during the current sanction regime, Nilssen said.   

Identify both mechanism and motivation

The final keynote was Rolf Rødven, Executive Secretary of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, AMAP.

– In the internal talks at AMAP, the discussions about continued scientific collaboration with Russia boiled down to defining scientific integrity as our most important asset. Whatever we wanted to do, we needed to make sure that our scientific integrity was maintained. For instance, we would resist any pressure to exclude Russian co-authors from scientific papers, as that would constitute scientific misconduct, Rødven said.

– If we would like to resume a full pan-Arctic cooperation including Russia, and the need to understand the impacts of rapidly warming Arctic is the reason for doing so, we would need to identify both the mechanism and the motivation. The legally binding Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation provides such a mechanism, and to join efforts towards the International Polar Year in 2032 in meeting the most important challenge for our Arctic future may be such a motivation, Rødven added.

In her introductory comments to the panel, Clara Ganslandt, Special Envoy for Arctic Matters, European External Action Service, said:

– This session has been enlightening on the complexities of the current geopolitical situation, when also intersecting with the global threat of climate change.

Academic director of Academia Europaea Bergen, Eystein Jansen, also had introductory comments to the panel:

– It is easy to become pessimistic about the role of science diplomacy today and whether the concept has any meaning at all. Taking part in conversations here at Arctic Circle Berlin, I’m convinced that there still is a role for science diplomacy. Continuing to do scientific research the way it should be done, will create a space for science diplomacy, Jansen said.

Additional avenues

– Also important to consider, is that there are more avenues for science diplomacy than just collaboration with Russia. Organizations like IPY, IPPC, AMAP or the UN system still operates and some of these may be able to provide avenues for cooperation with Russia further down the line.

In the following panel discussion, Clara Ganslandt pointed out several organisations where science diplomacy is still happening and functioning:

– In my view, projects like the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance, the EU Polar Cluster, The Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership and also the G7 Future of the Seas and Oceans Initiative are examples of science diplomacy that is ongoing and working, Ganslandt said as part of the panel discussion during the session.

More on the “Rethinking Arctic Collaboration”-project from Academia Europaea Bergen.

Currently, Arctic climate research does not have access to critical climate data from 45% of the Arctic area. This is because climate data from the Russian Arctic areas is largely no longer available to the global research community, as a by-product of the Russia sanctions. We’ll look into the consequences of this at our session at the Arctic Circle Berlin Forum “Arctic Scientific Cooperation in Flux”, on May 8th, 11:30– 12:30.

The above is one of the findings in the report “The Future of Arctic Science and Science Diplomacy”, initiated by Academia Europaea Bergen, the Nordic hub for the pan-European science academy Academia Europaea.

The absence of complete and comprehensive observations for the actual climate development of the Arctic is potentially dramatic, as the Arctic is seen as a “temperature gauge” for global warming and processes of global impact occurs there. In the Arctic, temperatures are rising three times faster than the global mean. A related situation demanding attention in the Arctic is the thawing of the permafrost and the methane emissions and other climate feedbacks resulting from this. A complete picture of this situation will also require complete data from all Arctic areas including the Russian ones.

This lack of complete data sets is a by-product of the sanctions following the Russian war in Ukraine, sanctions that also affect cooperation with Russian scientists, within a broad portfolio of scientific topics and science-based management. We ask what consequences the lack of science diplomacy has had and will have on the sharing of climate data and international scientific collaboration in general and particularly with respect to the collection and distribution of data? And what are the scenarios for Arctic climate and environmental research in the longer run?

For our session at the Arctic Circle Berlin Forum, May 8th, 11:30– 12:30, panelists will be Clara Ganslandt, Rolf Rødven, Eystein Jansen,  Melody B. Burkins and Frode Nilssen. Moderator will be Volker Rachold. Bios on all below. 

Organisers

Academia Europaea Bergen, University of Bergen, Nord University Business School, Institute of Arctic Studies in Dartmouth, Alfred Wegener Institute (all partners of the Rethinking Arctic Project (2023-2025), funded by UArctic, UiB and Academia Europaea Bergen).

Moderator and panelists:

Volker Rachold is head of the German Arctic Office at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), which serves as an information and cooperation platform among German stakeholders from science, politics, and industry. Before moving to the German Arctic Office in 2017, he had served as the executive secretary of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) in Stockholm and Potsdam since 2006. Rachold graduated as a geochemist from Göttingen University, where he also obtained his PhD in 1994. Since then, he has worked with the AWI. His research focused on land-ocean interactions in the Siberian Arctic, and he led several land- and ship-based Russian-German expeditions.

 

Clara Ganslandt is Special Envoy for Arctic Matters at the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Union’s diplomatic service. Ganslandt’s role is to drive forward the EU’s Arctic policy, enhance cooperation with partner countries and other interested parties, improve coordination between the different EU institutions, mainstream Arctic issues in policy-making, and promote and publicise the EU’s Arctic engagement externally. She entered the Swedish diplomatic service in 1990. Following Sweden’s accession to the EU in 1995, she joined the first structure set up in the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers of the EU to build the EU Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP); and she has since then worked in EU external relations in various functions. She holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from the Lund University in Sweden, and also studied at the College of Europe in Bruges, and at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

Melody Brown Burkins, PhD, is the Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies, Senior Associate Director in the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, and Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth. In January 2022, she was also named the UArctic Chair in Science Diplomacy and Inclusion. With over 30 years of experience as a polar scientist working in academia and governance, she is an advocate for policy-engaged scholarship, experiential education, and the support of science policy and diplomacy initiatives advancing sustainability, inclusion, and gender equality in the Arctic and around the world.

 

Frode Nilssen is a professor at Nordland University Business School, High North Centre for Business and Governance. Most of his research has been on international trade and marketing within the frames of economic and governance issues, on food trade in particular. International Political Economy in the Arctic is a field of interest, particularly the blue economy and institutional frames, and on tensions between Economic Behaviour, Bilateral and Multilateral Governance and Politics in international food trade and exploitation of natural resources. Nilssen is also a research professor at the Fridjof Nansens Institute, head of the research department for marketing, strategy and management at the Bodø Graduate School of Business. He has served as a Special councillor at the Norwegian embassy in Moscow dealing with trade, fisheries and economic matters in the Norwegian-Russian relation.

Rolf Rødven is the Executive Secretary of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP). AMAP is mandated to monitor and assess the state of the Arctic region with respect to pollution and climate change issues, as well as their impacts on ecosystems and human health, and to provide policy recommendations to the Arctic Ministers. Rødven holds a PhD in Northern Populations and Ecosystems and an MBA in strategic leadership and finance from UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. He has been authoring several scientific papers on Arctic sosio-ecological systems. His previous positions include research director and director at the Norwegian Institute of Agricultural and Environmental research – Northern department, research director at the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomic research, and head of research section at Faculty of Biosciences, Fisheries and Economy, as well as leading positions in environmental management.

Eystein Jansen is professor of palaeoclimatology at the University of Bergen. Jansen was the founding director of the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, which he led for 13 years. Jansen is Academic Director for the Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub and Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC) and a member of Academia Europaea, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, The Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences and the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research. Jansen was in 2019 awarded the Brøgger prize and the Meltzer prize for excellence in research. His research has primarily dealt with the influence of changes in ocean circulation on climate and on natural climate changes.

Ole Øvretveit is currently Director of the Coastal Impact Hub in Kirkenes, Norway, which is a pilot project funded by the Norwegian government. In addition, he is the project manager at the Academia Europaea Bergen Hub for the UArctic funded project Rethinking Arctic Collaboration, holding a 10% researcher position at the host institution, the University of Bergen. Previously he has served as Director of Arctic Frontiers for eight years. Subsequently and as Director of Science to Policy for the Sustainable Development Goals at the University of Bergen. He has also provided leadership with Initiative West, a think tank on sustainable ocean economy, societal growth and the green transition from the west coast of Norway.

 

 

Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionise scientific discovery, accelerate research progress, boost innovation, and improve researchers’ productivity. The EU must take hold of the opportunities this brings, and in a timely way. This is among the conclusions in a new evidence review report from the Science Advice Mechanism to the European Commission.

The new Evidence Review Report, a Scoping Paper and a Scientific Opinion on the topic “Successful and timely uptake of artificial intelligence in science in the EU” is now available to download from the SAM website.

The Academia Europaea hub in Cardiff will organize a webinar on the topic “AI and academic publishing: What does the future hold for authors, readers and publishers?” on 13th May. Several people connected with the recent Evidence Review Report will be panelists, including the Chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors, Professor Nicole Grobert.

The EU should prioritise AI-powered research in areas where large amounts of data are available but difficult to interpret, such as personalised health, social cohesion, and the green and digital transitions. This will bring the greatest benefits for EU citizens.

It is important to support new research into the greenest AI algorithms and infrastructure, to help manage the environmental impact of the technology.

AI-powered scientific research requires a vast amount of data. That data should be high quality, responsibly collected and well curated, with fair access for European researchers and innovators. So the EU should continue to work with the research community to ensure that data standards, guidelines and best practices can evolve as technology develops.

A geopolitical asset

AI has become a geopolitical asset. The availability of both human talent and computing power defines which parts of the world can make the most of AI, and which are falling behind. Currently, most AI infrastructure belongs to a small number of companies, largely in the US and China, and even public research labs depend on them for computing power. The opacity of the commercial AI sector makes it difficult to obtain the transparent, reproducible scientific results that are essential to robust science in an open society.

To rebalance the situation and boost public research across all disciplines and member states, we need to give universities and research institutes across Europe fair access to state-of-the-art AI facilities. A new European institute for AI in science would provide massive high-performing computational power, a sustainable cloud infrastructure, and AI training programmes for scientists. Alongside these services, a European AI in Science Council would provide dedicated funding for researchers in all disciplines to explore and adopt AI in their sciences. These would also ensure that AI in research aligns with EU core values.

The EU must provide a competitive and attractive AI research environment by offering the opportunity to work on high-impact societal challenges and a stimulating work environment, in addition to a high quality of life.

These are some of the topics explored in the new Evidence Review Report. The review document, a Scoping Paper and a Scientific Opinion, as well as an introduction video,  is available from the SAM website.