The AE-Bergen Knowledge Hub had the pleasure of hosting the former president of Academia Europaea, Sierd Cloetingh, on his visit to the University of Bergen, September 4^th– 6^th. On this occasion, he gave an interview about his long relationship with Norway and the scientific community in Norway, his work in Earth Science, the importance of science advice for policy, and the work of Academia Europaea. 

– Earlier in your career, your work in Earth Science has taken you to Norway on many occasions?

– Yes, the topography and geology of Norway is of great interest to Earth Scientists. The Norwegian Atlantic margin is one of the best studied in world. I had the pleasure of having a close personal interaction with researchers from both industry and academia, such as Olav Eldholm, Roy Helge Gabrielsen, Bjørn Larsen and Bjørn Rasmussen, as well as AE-Bergen Hub Director Eystein Jansen, who is still very much present in the international scene.

– These people are examples of the presence of a strong research community in this field. Norway is fairly unique as a natural laboratory for studying the role of the interaction of deep Earth and surface processes in continental break-up and subsequent evolution of rifted continental margins and Earth topography. In addition, it has been a very good example of cooperation between the academic field and the energy industry sector, which my PhD students, now with distinguished careers, have continued.

– Of the close to 80 PhD candidates you have supervised, 10 have been engaged in the research cooperation with Norway. What are your impressions of developments in your field in Norway?

– It’s been very interesting to learn more about the recent work of the group that my former student Ritske S. Huismans has built up here in Bergen. They really do frontier research, the international composition of the teams in Norway is exemplary and the work of young scientists is very interesting.

– You seem to have very active retirement?

– I’ve always been multitasking. For instance, I’ve done a lot of community work in addition to my professional work, and I’m happy to be able to continue that. I’ve also been able to multitask in combining my passion for Earth Science with my passion for the European project. I’m happy to still be involved in active science. I sometimes say that though I’m retired, I’m not tired. I’m happy to see how the EU has supported science through a growing portfolio of grants, such as ERC grants and grants through the COST Association.

– It’s been a very important development that grant schemes now exist for all phases of a researcher’s career in Europe, form the young researcher as a student and up until he or she has a full professorship, prof. Cloetingh said in his lecture, citing grant such as Erasmus+, MSCA and the various ERC grants on the different steps of the career ladder and the networking in COST Actions.

– You have a long history with Academia Europaea, for instance you were the vice-president for 6 years before you were president 2014-2020. How do you see both the history of and the future for Academia Europaea?   

– Yes, I was also a member already from 1993, just 5 years after the founding of Academia Europaea. I must say that the founders of Academia Europaea were really visionaries. Many of the principles of Academia Europaea from the beginning, have proved to be essential in the following years. Examples are interdisciplinarity, independence, the bottom-up structure and thinking cross-border.

In this lecture in Bergen, titled “European cooperation in science, innovation and policy advice” Sierd Cloetingh emphasized the importance of the independence of academies like Academia Europaea, as well as the independence of organizations like SAPEA and the bottom-up spirit of the COST Association and the ERC. In his overview of SAPEA projects, he also underscored the wide variety of topics addressed in the SAPEA Evidence Review Reports since 2016. This sentiment was echoed by several of the commentators, particularly Matthias Kaiser.

– These reports are prepared on the request of the European Commission, something that ensures that they will have a life and role to play in policy decisions.

Prof. Cloetingh pointed out in his lecture that there is a close interaction between SAPEA and the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission in SAM.

In terms of the role of the AE-Bergen Hub in SAPEA, prof. Cloetingh highlighted the role of prof. Dag Aksnes as chair of the “Food from the Oceans” SAPEA Working Group, as well as cooperations between AE-Bergen Hub an AE Cardiff, on outreach for “Biodegradability of Plastics” as well as the joint webinar on “Transitioning to New Energy Systems”.

The Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub has agreed to supply the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) with administrative support. This cooperation was last week formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Eystein Jansen for AE-Bergen Hub and Gemma Modinos for YAE. A recording of the event is available here:   

The AE-Bergen Hub has responded to a request from YAE the help out with administrative tasks and web updates, as the YAE currently relies on the unpaid work of board members for the running of it’s administration.

In view of the important work done by YAE, as well as the partnership between YAE and AE established in 2012, the AE-Bergen Hub agreed to the cooperation which have now been formalized, where the hub will contribute to web updates and newsletters, as well as help with sending out fee reminders.

The agreement was formalized with the signing of an MoU during a zoom meeting on September 13^th. 

Dorthe Dahl-Jensen from Uni Copenhagen and Johannes Oerlemans from Utrecht University have won the 2022 Balzan Prize in the category “Glaciation and Ice-Sheet Dynamics”.

Dahl-Jensen is a world leader in ice core drilling and subsequent analysis of ice core data in conjunction with models to determine past climate and how it affected the Greenland ice sheet dynamics and size, thus informing future changes in climate and sea level. Her research has led to numerous achievements that document how the past illuminates potential future abrupt climate changes. Dorthe Dahl-Jensen was elected to Academia Europaea in 2022.

– We are particularly happy to see the prize awarded to a scholar from the Nordic and Baltic region, covered by our Hub, says Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of AE-Bergen Hub.

Johannes “Hans” Oerlemans is a Dutch climatologist specialized in glaciology and sea level. He has been a professor of meteorology in the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at Utrecht University since 1989. He was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, and has been a member of Academia Europaea since 1989.

The International Balzan Prize Foundation aims is to promote culture, the sciences, and the most meritorious initiatives in the cause of humanity, peace, and fraternity among peoples throughout the world.

Academia Europaea congratulates Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Johannes Oerlemans as winner of the 2022 Balzan Prize.

The Academic Director of the AE-Bergen Knowledge Hub, Eystein Jansen, had the task of distilling 3000 pages of the latest IPCC Climate reports into a 15-minute talk.

Jansen spoke of the key findings in the latest 3 IPCC climate reports during the 2022 Rosendal Week, a regional conference in Western Norway focusing on climate change, energy transitions, green initiatives, and sustainability.

IPCC 6th Assessment report consists of 3 available reports, focusing respectively on «The Physical Science Basis», «Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability» and «Mitigation of Climate Change». Even more condensed than in Jansen´s 15-minute talk, the findings can be broken down to 5 bullet-points:

• Every decade the last 60 years have been warmer than the previous decade.
• With a global temperature increase of 1,25 degrees, the goal of the Paris accord of limiting global warming to 1,5 degrees will be surpassed within 10-15 years.
• The increase in extreme heatwaves, forest fires and flooding affect all continents.
• Extreme rainfalls are increasing both in frequency and in intensity.
• Sea levels have risen 4,6 mm yearly since 2010.

Towards the end of his presentation, Academic Director Eystein Jansen looked at Norwegian emissions of CO₂ and other climate gases, implying that there is a need for lowering national emissions by 3,5 million tons yearly in the years leading up to 2030 in order to reach the national reduction targets.

Following the presentation from Eystein Jansen, was a discussion between him and the Norwegian minister of climate and environment, Espen Barth Eide, moderated by Bergens Tidende Editor-in-Chief Frøy Gudbrandsen. The minister agreed with Jansen that stronger measures must be implemented to reach climate goals.

– We see encouraging progress in the EU countries. For a country like Norway, demanding climate action from trading partners can be an effective measure, the minister said.

The location of the conference in the idyllic village of Rosendal by the Hardangerfjord in Western Norway, underlined the urgency in taking care of the natural beauty of the planet.

– While we are at risk of reaching some negative tipping points, we also see the possibility of some positive tipping points, arising from increased awareness in the public, something that also should be addressed by the social sciences, Eystein Jansen said, ending the talk and the discussion on a positive note.

Summer has reached Europe. While some parts experience heat waves, it has been cool and wet so far here in Bergen, but now finally the Nordic summer is emerging. We can look back at a semester where the grip of the pandemic has faded.

However, new variants of the virus put people to bed, but this time mostly with milder symptoms and new lockdowns in Europe seem unlikely. This encourages our Hub to plan for more physical activities ahead, although the pandemic has taught us that we can get much done and reach further out by also utilizing online meeting and webinars.

Instead of the expected normalization we now have a devastating ongoing crisis in Europe with global effects, due to Russia´s unprovoked brutal invasion of Ukraine. In addition to the direct suffering and senseless destruction, the conflict influences many aspects of academic life. Most severely for Ukrainian academics who have had their lives turned upside down, whose workplaces are destructed or inaccessible, who have had to flee or to take part in the armed or civilian resistance. They all have my deepest thoughts and concerns!

But the effects go way beyond the direct impact for Ukrainian (and Russian) academics. Research is international by nature, and the changing geopolitical and economic landscape will influence us all in many ways. We can already see that the war and the sanctions have created severe obstacles for cooperation in the Arctic, – a region of high priority for our Hub. In May we organised a successful side-event on the status, opportunities, and environmental impacts of potential deep-sea mineral mining at the Arctic Frontiers Conference in Tromsø. Throughout the conference however, both in sessions and off sessions, the effects of the ongoing war on Arctic research were a theme of deep concern.

Research has for many years been an avenue for science diplomacy and collaboration in the Arctic and has helped lower geopolitical tensions in the region. The current shut-down in western-Russo relations is effective in the Arctic. A potent example of this is the pausing of all Arctic Council activities. The academic community risks losing networks, collaborations, and key environmental data. For this reason, our Hub has initiated a project to investigate the effects of the war on Arctic research and science diplomacy on the short and longer term. We aim to provide a report by the end of this year.

Through November 2021-March 2022 the Hub helped organise the work of an AE Task Force set up by the Board to explore a stronger AE presence in the area of climate, environment and sustainability. A membership poll showed wide interest in contributing, and we envisage new initiatives to emerge after the summer break.

We can welcome close to 50 new AE members from the Nordic and Baltic regions in this year´s nomination round, and hope all will become active members. In Norway we have strengthened our ties to the national academies and hope to be able to do so across the Nordic/Baltic region as well. Any help with establishing meeting places or joint activities in the rest of the region will be heartly welcomed.

With the demise of the pandemic, we plan to launch new initiatives and opportunities for our members the coming semesters, some in collaboration with other AE Hubs and some related to the Science Advice for Policy activities of AE in the second phase of the SAPEA project, now funded as SAPEA+ under the Horizon Europe Programme. We look forward to receiving suggestions and ideas that our members may have on events and themes that our Hub should engage in.

With best wishes for a nice summer!

Eystein Jansen
Academic Director