Category: News

The Uppsala Conference and The General Assembly of the World Philology Union (WPU) at Uppsala University, December 2024, resulted in the signing of the “The Uppsala Declaration on the Preservation of Philology and the Study of Historical Languages”.

– For the board of the World Philology Union and for philological scholars gathered in Uppsala before Christmas, it is of vital importance to see the recognition and the working conditions for the philological disciplines brought back to the centre of humanistic studies, rather than being scaled down as we see in many universities today, says the president of the WPU, Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE).

To underline this urgency, “The Uppsala Declaration” points out, among other issues, that “philology, defined as the grammatical and literary study of the oral and written heritage of the world’s various languages, is the ultimate foundation of the humanities”.

The work to anchor “The Uppsala Declaration” is in its early stages and is expected to go through several phases, Amund Haave of the WPU board explains.

– The Assembly at Uppsala were signatories as an assembly, and by extension also as individuals. In the first phase, we’ll ask academic institutions to sign, and possibly in a second phase, we will ask for individuals to sign, Amund Haave adds.

WPU president Jens Braarvig has been driving force at the WPU since it was founded in 2021, working to bring back philology as a central discipline of humanistic studies.

– Looking at my own University in Oslo, we see that a proud philological tradition is now reduced to just a few subjects being studied. Now, only Greek, Latin and Old Norse is being studied from a philological perspective at University in Oslo. This reduction in the field of Philology is also seen internationally, Braarvig says.

We have to ask ourselves as a society if we want to have basic research on historic texts. If yes, we need to access the sources. When early texts in ancient and classical languages are the source, then the philological expertise is needed to interpret them, Braarvig adds.

Philology as intangible heritage

In addition to their work with universities, and with Science Academies such as Academia Europaea, The World Philology Union is also working to give the discipline of philology recognition on the World Heritage List from UNESCO.

– A dichotomy is seen between intangible heritage and tangible heritage. Of course, great buildings and great architecture, or other forms of tangible heritage is important to honour. Still, intangible heritage is also important to the human experience. That’s why the WPU is working with UNESCO to recognize the discipline of philology as a central part of the intangible heritage of the world, Jens Braarvig says.

Founded in 2021

The World Philology Union (WPU) was founded on the 2nd of December 2021 at the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Oslo, as an international association which promotes the philological study of written cultural heritage from all regions of the world. It was established in coordination with the Union académique internationale (UAI), the umbrella organization of all academies of science worldwide, and the UNESCO-related Conseil international de la philosophie et des sciences humaines (CIPSH).

With the establishment of the WPU in 2021, comparative philology has also come more into the forefront of the discipline.

– For a long time, philologists were friends that did not communicate very much. As we’re now working to establish philology again, we will also try to strengthen comparative studies in philology, Braarvig says.

Read or download the programme of The Uppsala Conference here. 

Click here to read or download “The Uppsala Declaration”

As evidenced by the Annual Report of the Academia Europaea Bergen Hub, 2024 was a highly active year for the Hub, with several lecture series, and a strong engagement in the research and innovation landscape of our region.

Click to find the Annual Report to read or download.

The hub continued it’s cooperation in lecture series at University of Bergen, such as the Horizon lecture series and the NTVA/Tekna/AE-Bergen lecture series.

In 2024, as in the previous year, our Hub’s had several activities focused on science and science diplomacy in the Arctic. We hosted a well-attended side event at Arctic Frontiers 2024 conference, titled “A New Arctic Energy Mix”, featuring leading experts on energy and the green transition. Through our ongoing Rethinking Arctic Collaboration project we have organised events at key European Arctic conferences, including the Arctic Circle in Berlin in May and at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in October, the latter featuring both a closed roundtable with key stakeholders and an open event. We also attended a workshop at Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies, kicked off with a public event.

We encourage our members to bring forward suggestions and initiatives for Hub activities, which this year led to our partnership with Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE) in co-organising the Second Biennial Conference of the World Philology Union at Uppsala University from December 4th to 6th, 2024.

 

 

The first planet in another solar system was discovered in 1995 and raised existential questions: Are we alone? Could humans thrive on other planets? How can we detect life or assess habitability? In this recorded lecture, Professor Carina Persson, professor of astrophysics and head of Chalmers Exoplanet Group, provides an overview of the field, describe the current frontiers, and paint an outlook of the discoveries to come with better observational capacity.

The recording was made during the Darwin Day & Horizons lecture with Professor Carina Persson at University of Bergen on Wednesday 12th of February 2025.

The first planet in another solar system was discovered in 1995 and immediately raised existential questions: Are we alone? Could humans thrive on other planets? How can we detect life or assess habitability?

The first exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star than our sun, was seen from Earth as late as 1995 by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz and earned them a shared Nobel Prize in Physics. Before their breakthrough, it was believed that all planets and systems would look like our own. But the first planet was an unexpected new type.

In the decades that followed, enormous efforts have been made to detect and characterize exoplanets with both dedicated space missions and ground-based facilities. Now almost 6000 exoplanets have been found, and the two most common types of planets have no counterparts in our own solar system. Further, no exoplanet system with similar architecture to our own has so far been detected.

This has led to a dramatic change of our understanding of planets and planetary systems: there is an enormous diversity of exoplanets and system architectures.

It is, however, extremely difficult to observe exoplanets: most often they are seen as faint dips in a star’s brightness as the planet passes in front. The smaller the planet the harder it is to document, and very few of those have been well characterized. There is still an observational bias so that the full diversity of exoplanets has not yet been explored and explained.

Future space missions and development of state-of-the-art spectrographs mounted on ground-based facilities promise new discoveries. There is hope that these will reveal the true breadth and variability among exoplanets. A fundamental challenge is investigations of planet atmospheres, which are key to inferring habitability and the search for extraterrestrial life.

In this talk, professor Carina Persson will provide an overview of the field, describe the current frontiers, and paint an outlook of the discoveries to come with better observational capacity.

 

Warming nearly four times faster than the global average, the Arctic stands as both a warning and a roadmap for addressing the interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and geopolitical tensions. Rather than just to reflect on these challenges, we try to chart a way forward for collaboration, innovation, and equitable governance in the Arctic, project director Ole Øvretveit  said in his introduction at the Arctic Frontiers event co-hosted by Academia Europaea Bergen.

The event was hosted under the UArctic-funded project, Rethinking Arctic Collaboration, led by a consortium of institutions, including Academia Europaea Bergen, the University of Bergen, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Nord University, and Dartmouth College, among others. The project’s mission is clear: to understand the current state of Arctic research and science diplomacy while facilitating new frameworks for sustainable, ethical, and impactful collaborations.

Historically, the Arctic has benefited from international cooperation frameworks, such as the Arctic Council, fostering collaboration in research and governance. However, recent geopolitical events, including Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and growing global geopolitical tensions, have disrupted key activities in Arctic scientific diplomacy and collaboration. As we approach the Fifth International Polar Year (IPY5) in 2032–33, we urgently need to rethink and frame the future of polar science cooperation and diplomacy to address global challenges with the most effective, impactful, and equitable ethical research collaborations for our planet.

Find the recording here, and explore the discussion on issues like:

What might future challenges, stakes, and key strategic pathways toward future Arctic science diplomacy be?

How do we safeguard the integrity of knowledge production informing Arctic policy and diplomacy?

How do we embed equitable and ethical engagement in Arctic science diplomacy to increase its effectiveness in informing and shaping global policy?

Panelists are Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, Miguel Roncero, International Relations Officer at the European Commission, Melody Brown Burkins, Director Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth, Ole Øvretveit, Project Manager at Academia Europaea Bergen, Anders Oskal, Secretary General of the Association of World Reindeer Herders and Jenny Baseman, consultant.

 

Climate Diplomacy on Thin Ice: Navigating Arctic Cooperation & Polar Governance

A recording of the panel discussion at Dartmouth College, November 18th 2024,

The geopolitical landscape of the Arctic has shifted dramatically following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which paused over 25 years of traditional Arctic Council-informed and -guided cooperation with Arctic Indigenous Peoples, Arctic Nations, and Observer States. This break in Arctic diplomacy, particularly the cessation of scientific cooperation, raises crucial questions about the future of Arctic collaboration on challenges facing the Arctic and the planet. In light of this, our project seeks to present a series of informed scenarios that may help guide Arctic diplomacy and cooperation as we look toward 2032, a year that will also mark the 5th International Polar Year (IPY-5).

Panelists

Ole Øvretveit, Manager & Researcher of Arctic Science Diplomacy Project, University of Bergen & Academia Europaea Bergen, Norway

Volker Rachold, Head of the German Arctic Office, Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Germany

Heather Exner-Poirot, Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Special Advisor to the Business Council of Canada; Research Advisor to the Indigenous Resource Network, Canada

Matthias Kaiser, Professor Emeritus at the Center for the Study of the Sciences and Humanities (SVT) at the University of Bergen; International Science Council Fellow, Norway

Jenny Baeseman, Arctic and polar consultant; former Executive Director of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR); former Director of the Climate and the Cryosphere Project (CliC), USA

Moderated by Melody Brown Burkins, Director, Institute of Arctic Studies, Dickey Center, Dartmouth

The future of Arctic collaboration is at a crossroads. As we look toward 2032 and beyond, it is essential to engage in forward-thinking discussions that go beyond immediate challenges and envision what Arctic diplomacy could become. This was the backdrop for a panel discussion at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík, October 2024, available as a recording above.

The event was Co-organized by Academia Europaea Bergen, and moderated by Ole Øvretveit, Manager & Researcher of the Arctic Science Diplomacy Project, University of Bergen & Academia Europaea Bergen. In the panel were Melody Brown Burkins of the Institute of Arctic Studies, Dartmouth College, Lise Øvreås, president of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Volker Rachold of the German Arctic Office, Alfred Wegener-Institute (AWI), Gunn-Britt Retter, Arctic & Environmental Unit, Saami Council and Henry Burgess, Head of the NERC Arctic Office, British Antarctic Survey; President, International Arctic Science Committee (IASC).

In her introduction, Melody Brown Burkins described how the Arctic Science Diplomacy Project is a group with very diverse perspective, with several group members part of the Arctic Circle Assembly panel. Furthermore, she emphasized how this group will focus less on the immediate future of Arctic Science Diplomacy, but rather look ahead to possible scenarios in the build-up to the 5^th International Polar Year 2032-2033.

In the following conversation, a range of topics relating to the future om Arctic Science Diplomacy are discussed.

Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of Academia Europaea Bergen and ERC Vice-President, delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of Nordic University Rectors in Brussels on September 23, 2024.

The last few weeks have been positive for the ERC and its mission, especially if the signals we’ve received translate into policies and funding decisions. I am particularly thinking of Mario Draghi’s comprehensive report on European competitiveness and the mandate given by Commission President von der Leyen to the newly appointed Commissioner for Research, Ekaterina Zaharieva. I also see encouraging signs from the work of the Heitor Group, which is shaping the next Framework Programme, FP10, set to be released on October 16. These developments offer a strong foundation to reinvigorate our efforts for excellence in research and to enhance the European Research Area.

Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of Academia Europaea Bergen and ERC Vice-President, delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of Nordic University Rectors in Brussels on September 23, 2024.

The last few weeks have been positive for the ERC and its mission, especially if the signals we’ve received translate into policies and funding decisions. I am particularly thinking of Mario Draghi’s comprehensive report on European competitiveness and the mandate given by Commission President von der Leyen to the newly appointed Commissioner for Research, Ekaterina Zaharieva. I also see encouraging signs from the work of the Heitor Group, which is shaping the next Framework Programme, FP10, set to be released on October 16. These developments offer a strong foundation to reinvigorate our efforts for excellence in research and to enhance the European Research Area.

Mario Draghi’s wide-ranging report on European competitiveness, issued two weeks ago, paints a critical picture of Europe’s current ability to harness talent, drive innovation, and translate research into breakthrough technologies. According to Draghi, the EU-funded research system is too top-down and bureaucratic. He advocates for more ERC-style frontier research, led by independent scientific bodies, and calls for greater investment in this area.

The Draghi report highlights: “The European Research Council (ERC) has been crucial to the competitiveness of European science, but many promising proposals remain unfunded due to a lack of financial resources.” The report recommends doubling support for fundamental research through the ERC, significantly increasing the number of grant recipients without compromising the quality of funding.

In fact, the ERC could currently fund 40% more outstanding projects without diminishing quality or excellence—if budget allocations were increased. Furthermore, the purchasing power of our grants needs to be restored to 2009 levels, when they were last adjusted, 15 years ago.

On October 16, Manuel Heitor will release his report on the next Framework Programme. From what I have gathered, it will emphasize many of the same concerns raised in the Draghi report, while providing more detailed advice for FP10. It will stress the importance of bottom-up frontier and breakthrough research, led by independent, scientist-driven bodies, with a stronger focus on Marie Curie Actions.

Both reports praise the ERC, underscoring the importance of organizational independence and leadership by prominent scientists for these initiatives to succeed.

Guarantees of a “fifth freedom”

In her mandate to the new Commissioner for Research, Innovation, and Startups, Commission President von der Leyen emphasized:

• “You will create conditions for researchers and innovators to thrive, focusing on groundbreaking fundamental research and disruptive innovation, especially in strategic fields, and on scientific excellence. You will work to expand the European Innovation Council (EIC) and the European Research Council (ERC).”
• “You will propose a European Research Area Act to guarantee a ‘fifth freedom’—the free movement of researchers, scientific knowledge, and technology. The aim is to reduce the fragmentation of research and anchor innovation and research into the single market.”

These are hopeful messages!

We are living through unprecedented times. Even before the terrible events unfolding in the Middle East and Ukraine, people were already describing the global situation as a “polycrisis”—a scenario in which interconnected crises create compounded, more severe impacts than individual crises alone. Universities, as enduring institutions, face a unique challenge in these times.

Excellence remains a guiding principle. It would be regrettable if the EU Framework Programmes abandoned the “principle of excellence.” Some believe universities should focus only on certain areas, but I personally deplore such narrow thinking. The fact that the ERC supports all academic research areas is a strength worth protecting. Universities are not called “universities” because they are monocultures.

The ERC Scientific Council remains convinced that the ERC’s mission is more relevant than ever. Focusing too much on short-term results risks undermining future innovation, and our brightest talents will not settle for merely imitating others. It’s crucial to remember that the ERC supports not only scientific inquiry but also engineering across several of its panels. To lead in new and emerging areas of science, we must allow our best researchers the freedom to exercise their creativity.

The ERC was founded for this very reason.

ERC-funded researchers have received prestigious awards, including 14 Nobel Prizes, and have contributed to EU goals such as the green and digital transitions. They’ve made breakthroughs in critical technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum information, and 40% of ERC projects have resulted in patents, with around 400 ERC-funded researchers founding startups. ERC projects also lead to a higher rate of patents per euro invested than other targeted elements of the Framework Programmes.

We do care deeply about the impact of the research we fund, and granting researchers the freedom to explore is the best way to maximize that impact. ERC researchers have also trained the next generation of scientists, employing over 100,000 researchers, mainly PhD candidates and postdocs, in their teams.

If we look at the most significant scientific publications (the top 1% most-cited), the EU world share is 18% compared to 23% for China and 27% for the US. When we break this down by scientific field we see that the EU leads in only two of twenty of these fields, namely history and biology.

In most fields either the US or China has a clear lead over the EU, including in enabling and strategic technologies, information and communication technologies, biomedical research and earth and environmental sciences.

And if we look at new and emerging fields, the US and China have an even bigger lead.

Insufficient to meet the full potential

The ERC’s current budget of €2 billion annually is insufficient to meet its full potential. For the ERC to truly have systemic effects throughout Europe, it was estimated in 2003 that its budget would need to be 5% of national research agencies’ budgets—equivalent to €5 billion today. This remains true.

The final message in our statement on FP10 is that the ERC’s independence is critical to its success. The ERC’s ability to determine how it runs its calls and manages grants must be protected. Unfortunately, this independence is under pressure, as streamlined processes threaten to undermine it. We need to ensure the ERC’s autonomy is preserved in FP10.

The selection process is the heart of the ERC’s excellence, and it must remain of the highest quality. We need over 1,000 high-level scientists annually for our evaluation panels, with an additional 6,000 remote reviewers. Our simple, tailored procedures provide the necessary flexibility, and this should not be hampered by standardized processes across the EU’s entire research framework.

Finally, I urge you—Nordic Rectors and university leaders—to support a joint Nordic initiative at the government level, in alignment with the Draghi and Heitor reports. A strong, united Nordic voice will send a powerful signal and help create momentum in the right direction. Europe needs a concerted effort to strengthen its research base, support excellence, and reduce bureaucracy.

Let’s work together to ensure that Europe’s researchers are supported in a way that allows original talent to thrive.

Many thanks for your attention!

 

The Second Biennial Conference of the World Philology Union will take place at Uppsala University from the 4th to 6th December 2024. The president of the WPU, Professor Jens Braarvig (MAE) sees the mission of the WPU and the Uppsala Conference as nothing less than reviving the discipline of Philology. The conference in December is titled “Philology and the narrative heritage” and will take a close look at ancient texts from all over the globe.

– Today, academics who are experts in Philology, see their discipline being scaled down or disappearing in universities. We have set up the World Philology Union organisation to show the importance of the philological disciplines, says Jens Braarvig, a major driving force behind the WPU.

He sees the study of historical languages as fundamental to other disciplines also, such as the study of History. Furthermore, he sees much of the fantasy fiction of today as allegories over the ancient stories. Braarvig is eager to see the discipline of philology revived so that the modern versions of the ancient stories are not the only curation of the ancient texts available to the public.

– If we don’t have any experts capable of reading the historical languages, you do not have access to the sources, Braarvig says.

– Stories are everywhere. There are stories in the discipline of law, there are stories in politics and also in science. Narratives are part of our heritage. This immaterial heritage is as important as our material heritage, and a major reason why we should study the ancient languages at the universities, he adds.

Still, looking at the programme for the Uppsala conference, the field of philology seems very vibrant with experts spanning a variety of traditions, making sure that the conference programme spans the study of texts from all over the world, from the Old Norse stories to the Vedas.

– Yes, the discipline is still attractive to experts, and they span many traditions, allowing both our conference and the WPU to have a truly global perspective. The problem is that experts in philology don’t have very good working conditions at the universities today.

Narrative heritage

– In the WPU, we see philology as a basic tool to access the narrative heritage, and of course this is a heritage we must curate academically. We seek to define and showcase the vital role that our discipline has played, and continues to play, in relation to the narrative heritage in its original languages, in analysing, interpreting and teaching stories preserved from all regions of the world, Braarvig says.

The World Philology Union (WPU) was founded on the 2nd of December 2021 at the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Sciences in Oslo, as an international association which promotes the philological study of written cultural heritage from all regions of the world. It was established in coordination with the Union académique internationale (UAI), the umbrella organization of all academies of science worldwide, and the UNESCO-related Conseil international de la philosophie et des sciences humaines (CIPSH).

The Uppsala Conference (4th to 6th December 2024) is an open conference with no attendance fees.

Academia Europaea Bergen is a co-organizer of the Uppsala Conference.

Read or download the complete programme for The Uppsala Conference here. 

 

How do the general public experience climate change narratives? In recent studies, MAE and AE-Bergen Knowledge Hub Knowledge Hub steering group member Kjersti Fløttum sees that “the general public is more preoccupied by the tone that characterises climate narratives. They criticize the overwhelming negativity and gloom-and-doom perspectives and request a more positive approach”, our steering group member say. Read the complete interview made by the Academia Europaea Cardiff Hub.

 

About Kjersti Fløttum

Kjersti Fløttum MAE is a Professor Emerita of French Linguistics at the Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen. She has had an extensive academic career, serving as Vice-Rector for International Relations from 2005 to 2009 and as a member of the University Board from 2013 to 2021. From 2020 to 2023, she was the Chair of the Board of the Holberg Prize. Professor Fløttum has published extensively in international journals and is (co-)author/editor of several books.

Professor Fløttum’s research interests encompass text and genre theory, narrative structure, semantics, pragmatics, linguistic polyphony, and discourse analysis. Since 2012, she has led the interdisciplinary research group LINGCLIM, which investigates the role of language in climate change discourse. From 2020 to 2023, she led the CLIMLIFE project, which explores motivations for lifestyle changes in the context of climate change, funded by the Research Council of Norway.

In recognition of her efforts in promoting bilateral relations between France and Norway, she was honoured with the French Ordre national du Mérite in 2023.

Read the interview

Your work emphasises the importance of language in shaping climate change discourse. How do you believe narrative structures influence public perception and policymaking on climate change?

“Stories’ are made up of narratives, which have different components, of which complication and reaction are the most important. The influence narratives may have is dependent on the focus given to the complication element (climate change itself and its causes) and/or to the reaction component (possible solutions to curb the consequences of climate change). A narrative in which the reaction component is prominent may have a motivating effect, by providing people with suggestions for measures that could be taken at individual, community or societal levels.Conversely, a complication-focused narrative may induce a sense of despondency and fatalism. In addition, narratives may contain different characters (explicitly or implicitly), such as hero, victim and villain, that may display different distributions of responsibility.”

The LINGCLIM project has explored the role of language in climate discourse since 2012. What are the most significant findings that have emerged from this research?

“We have shown that there is a great variety of climate change narratives, caused by the immensity and complexity of the issue and the interests involved. Climate change refers to a process which manifests itself at scales far beyond those of daily experience, and which can only be understood through knowledge from a broad range of scientific disciplines. If we add to this complexity the fact that climate change is a phenomenon that goes well beyond the geophysical domain, to encompass the social, political, ethical, cultural and communicational, then any discourse on climate change is a simplification.We have also found, through the approach of linguistic polyphony, that climate narratives are particularly multi-voiced, with both explicit and implicit voices. With different voices come different values and interests. It has been particularly interesting to reveal how hidden voices can adopt, refute or concede other narrative voices within the same text.”

How do you ensure communication about climate change is both scientifically accurate and accessible to a general audience?

“As linguistics researchers, we cannot ensure scientific accuracy, but our cross-disciplinary approach of including climate researchers helps to avoid inaccuracy. With regards to accessibility to the general public, we have to enter into a dialogue with different segments of the population. For example, in a study where we included students from upper-secondary school, they told us that they found the relation between global and local changes particularly difficult.However, what we see in our most recent studies is that the general public is more preoccupied by the tone that characterises climate narratives. They criticise the overwhelming negativity and gloom-and-doom perspectives and request a more positive approach, pointing at possible solutions and where they can contribute.”

What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities for the next generation of researchers in climate linguistics?

“It will be important to focus on the importance of individual action and individual voices. There is increasing interest in who should act, as well as in what should be done to avoid or mitigate the most serious consequences. Clearly, international and national agents are needed to develop policies and implement changes, but individuals are also expected to contribute, especially through lifestyle change. A challenge will be to change the excuse of , “What I do will not have any effect” into an understanding that, “You matter more than you think”.We have seen a trend, both in psychological studies and public debates, that preferences are oriented towards more positive language, with an objection to negative and alarming language, which may demotivate people from engaging in climate action. This tendency should encourage communicators to strike a balance between alarming and encouraging people, when the aim is to motivate them towards climate action.As the consequences of climate change manifest globally, it’s also important to study its linguistic representations in relation to phenomena such as technological innovation, energy policies, armed conflicts, hunger, migration, as well as the destruction of nature and wildlife habitats.”