Author: nilsolav

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.

 

NTVA, Tekna Bergen og Academia Europaea Bergen arrangerte nylig foredrag og debatt om alternative pengesystemer med Svein Ølnes og Arne Krokan. Lenke til presentasjon fra foredraget er tilgjengalig fra NTVA nettsiden.

Pengesystemene er kritisk infrastruktur i samfunnet. Selv om vi har verdens mest effektive systemer for pengeoverføring, er denne infrastrukturen også beheftet med sårbarhet. Det blir fort synlig når Vipps og BankId er ute av drift. Og hva hadde skjedd om selve oppgjørssentralen ble satt ut av drift for eksempel på grunn av manglende tilgang til elektrisitet?

Systemene har også andre sårbarheter fordi bankene jo ikke er i besittelse av alle pengene vi “har satt inn”. De er avhengige av vår tillit, at ikke alle sammen samtidig vil ønske å ta ut pengene sine, for at dagens system skal fungere etter intensjonen. Det var denne tilliten som knekte et par amerikanske banker sist år. Så hva er alternativene? Hva koster det å drive dem? Og er det fornuftig med tanke på fremtidig samfunnssikkerhet å holde oss med ett eller flere alternative pengesystemer?

Foredragsholdere på dette seminaret var Svein Ølnes og Arne Krokan. Svein Ølnes, tidligere forsker Vestlandsforskning, har over 20 års erfaring som prosjektleder for ulike IT-prosjekter. Han har fulgt Bitcoin og kryptovaluta siden 2011 og publisert en rekke artikler om emnet. Arne Krokan, professor emeritus i økonomi og ledelse ved NTNU, er også forfatter. Han har skrevet en rekke bøker om det digitale skiftet, den siste med tittelen HOMO APPIENS.

Les mer på NTVAs hjemmeside. Nederst i teksten finnes også lenke til presentasjonen fra foredraget. 

 

 

Watch the video recording of “The evolution of learning and the origins of consciousness”, a lecture by professor Eva Jablonka. This was the Darwin Day and Horizon Lecture at University of Bergen on February 12th 2024.

In this lecture, Eva Jablonka explores the question of the origins of animal mentality, which Darwin avoided, and present an evolutionary approach for studying it, developed together with Simona Ginsburg. Jablonka explains the rationale and methodology underlying their approach and presents their proposal that the emergence of primary consciousness was driven by the evolution of a domain-general, representational form of associative learning, which they called unlimited associative learning (UAL).

The event on February 12th 2024 was a joint event organised by the Horizon Lecture Committee at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Darwin Day Committee at the Department of Biological Sciences, and Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub. The lecture received economic support from Selskapet til Vitenskapenes Fremme.

We apologize for the poor visuals of this recording. However, the audio quality is good, so we hope that you can still enjoy it.

A recording of the Arctic Frontiers 2024 panel discussion “A new Arctic energy mix – at what costs? The Finnmark example”, organized by AE-Bergen Hub, is now available on youtube.

 

The range of insights from keynotes, speakers, and panelists, as well as the audience response, proved that we had found a hot topic for this year’s side event. Our experts explored how the energy sources in use in Norway today will have to be supplemented by new energy sources in the future. While the emphasis of our experts varied, they all agreed on one thing; that in the future a mix of energy sources will be necessary, while also addressing the 1.5 or 2-degree targets set by the Paris Agreement.

Speakers were Jonas Kristiansen Nøland (Associate Professor of energy conversion with NTNU), Lars-Henrik Paarup Michelsen (director of the Norwegian Climate Foundation) and Sigrid Ina Simonsen (director of the regional office NHO Arctic). The panel discussion was moderated by Helge Nitteberg (editor-in-chief at Northers Norways leading newspaper Nordlys), and panelists were, in addition to speakers Nøland and Paarup Michelsen; Geir Vollsæter from the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions, Sigurd Kvammen Rafaelsen (mayor of Lebesby municipality) and Else Broderstad (International Sami Council).

Have a look at the youtube-recording of the event!