Category: News

Science Diplomacy has been a central part of Arctic relations for many decades, with the 8 Arctic states working together, even during the Cold War. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russo-western relationship has understandably entered an ice-cold phase. What are the foreseeable effects of freezing Science Diplomacy in the Arctic? This is the subject of a report commissioned by the AE-Bergen Hub.

Political scientist Ole Øvretveit will be writing the report, based on interviews with arctic experts, scientists, and political analysts. Arctic relations will also be the topic of a side event during the Arctic Frontiers conference, titled “The Future of Arctic Science and Science Diplomacy”, taking place on Thursday 2^nd February. The event is organised by the AE-Bergen Hub, with co-organisers University of Bergen, Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI), The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (DNVA) and University of Tromsø as co-organisers.

– “The new Russian openness in the 1990’s, particularly in the wake of Gorbachev’s Murmansk speech, opened new areas for Science Diplomacy in the Arctic. Even though the field of Science Diplomacy never cooled completely during the Cold War, new possibilities opened in the 1990’s, especially in areas like environment and climate. We saw significant rewards from sharing scientific data. Even though other effects of the war in Ukraine are more catastrophic, it is worthwhile investigating the effects of halting this collaboration,” Øvretveit says.

Øvretveit has been interviewing experts on the Arctic for the upcoming report over the last few months and is now in the process of evaluating his findings.

– “I hope that the report will be useful for readers interested in the Arctic, not necessarily just experts on the Arctic. Hopefully, the report will also shed some light on how reduced international Arctic science collaboration has affected our understanding of climate change in the Arctic,” Øvretveit says.    

– It has long been my firm belief that the chances of achieving premium research are higher when researchers are allowed to develop their own ideas. Challenging ideas are also more likely to result in new knowledge, says Eystein Jansen, Academic Director of the AE-Bergen Hub, AE trustee and as of 1st January, 2023, Vice-President of the ERC.

Two months after he takes up the position as ERC Vice-President, Jansen will be celebrating his 70th birthday, but this does not seem to lessen his energy at all. He is an outspoken champion for basic research and cites the focus on basic research in the current ERC guidelines as an important reason for accepting the appointment.

– I have great respect for the ERC. It is of huge importance that the ERC continues to be a flagship for basic research in Europe. This made it easy for me to accept the position of Vice-President and to strive to contribute through that role, Jansen says.

Taking up duties on 1st January 2023, Eystein Jansen will be responsible for ERC activities in the Physical Sciences and Engineering domain whilst Prof. Jesper Svejstrup will oversee the Life Sciences domain. The current Vice-President for Social Sciences and Humanities domain, Prof. Eveline Crone, will continue her mandate.

– We’ve seen many times, with the green deal, with health innovations and with new digital solutions, that real innovation is driven by basic and frontier research. I’m very happy that the guidelines of the ERC aligns with this, with a focus on basic and frontier research, says Eystein Jansen.

– Often, politicians seem to favour applied and mission-oriented research. For politicians, this is often considered a more secure path to knowledge. And of course, this research also has its place. But it is not correct that gains are higher from mission-oriented research. For instance, basic research is often more likely to result in patents than applied research does.

Challenging decades ahead

Curiosity has always been a driving force for Eystein Jansen. As for many Norwegians, he’s been fond of the great outdoors from an early age. In fact, it was one of the reasons he was inspired to embark on a career as a climate scientist.

– In my youth, I often wondered how the varied landscapes of Norway had been created. This led me to research the effects of earlier climate periods, and the effect these had on landscape formation. When I started out, climate research was not considered quite the “hot” field that it is now, but by the end of the 1980’s evidence started to mount that CO₂ emissions were about to create a new era of climate change, says Eystein Jansen.

– In the big picture, can you find reasons for optimism?

– I am an optimist by nature, but I recognize that the coming decades will be extremely challenging. Turning evidence-based decisions into actions, as well as adapting to new realities, will be of the utmost importance, says the AE-Bergen Hub director.

Prior to his appointment as ERC Vice-President, Eystein Jansen was known as the Founding Director for the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, established in 2000. Jansen stayed on as Director until 2013, building the Bjerknes Centre into a large multidisciplinary climate research centre, now ranking as internationally renowned.

Science diplomacy

– In Academia Europaea, you are both a Hub Director and a Trustee. What challenges do you see for AE in the coming years?

– Unless the pandemic takes new forms again, one of the main threats, both to society and to science in the coming years, will be the war in Ukraine. Whatever solutions may come, the war will have consequences for many years. It will affect science particularly in the fields of international cooperation and science diplomacy. Both these areas are cornerstones in the work of Academia Europaea.

– For the AE-Bergen Hub, Arctic issues and research is a strategic priority. Traditionally, the Arctic has been a good example of an area with low barriers to cooperation between Russia and the rest of the world. In the short term, this will now be very difficult.

– Working together with SAPEA, Academia Europaea have been investigating ways to achieve a systemic approach to the energy transition in Europe. Energy has now become a part of warfare, putting extra pressure on energy policy. In my view, these situations increase the need for evidence-based policy, and for courageous politicians.

In the coming years, the AE-Bergen Hub will have to share Eystein Jansen’s capacities with the ERC.

– I will not have any direct influence on project grants from my position as Vice-President, so the position is maybe not quite as powerful as some people would imagine. My main responsibility will be in appointing members of evaluation panels, ensuring that they are all experts in their fields, Eystein Jansen says.

The work of the Academia Europaea Task Force on Environment, Climate and Sustainability over the last year, was presented during a plenary session during the Building Bridges Annual Conference. Among the suggestions of the Task Force is for AE to set up a Permanent Working Group on Environment, Sustainability and Climate (PWGESC).

The Task Force has been chaired by Verena Winiwarter, who also presented the work at the Annual Conference. Deputy Chair has been Poul Holm with Peter Wagner as a member for Class A1, Eystein Jansen and Nebojsa Nakicenovic as members for Class B, and Patricia Holm and Jane Hill as members from Class C.

AE-Bergen and Hub Manager Kristin Bakken have facilitated the work of the Task Force, but further administrative resources will be needed for the Permanent Working Group.

– The Task Force sees the need for a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach. They suggest the topics for the Permanent Working Group to not be pre-framed by the specialties of members, Peter Wagner said during the presentation.

– The Permanent Task Force should also seek cooperation and communication with other Academies, seeking to not duplicate efforts done by others, but rather cooperate, Task Force Chair Verena Winiwarter said.

Interdisciplinary issue

– There are many links between topics important for sustainability issues, such as food and energy. The interdisciplinary nature of the issue indicates the Permanent Working Group should be formed across the different classes of the Academy, a thinking that also should inform future events, Jane Hill added.

The Task Force recommends that the Permanent Working Group (PWGESC) should consist of a core group of less than 10 people, two to three members per topic.

From the survey conducted by the Task Force, it is clear that AE members want AE to provide a distinctive, yet interdisciplinary approach, linking climate change, ecosystem transitions and human society transitions, with inputs across the four classes of AE.

Activities suggested by members were research-based policy reports, public debates, and expert hearings.

The Academic Director  of The Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub, Prof. Eystein Jansen is elected Vice President of the European Research Council (ERC).

Eystein Jansen will be responsible for the ERC activities in the Physical Sciences and Engineering domain from January 1th 2023, replacing Prof. Andrzej Jajszczyk. From the same date, Prof. Jesper Svejstrup will oversee the Life Sciences domain, replacing Prof. Nektarios Tavernarakis.

Eystein Jansen holds a PhD in Earth Science from the University of Bergen, where he has been a Professor of palaeoclimatology since 1993. Jansen was the founding director of the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, a world-leading centre on climate dynamics, which he led for 13 years. Jansen is presently the Academic Director for the Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub and is vice director for the interdisciplinary SapienCE Centre on Early Sapiens behaviour at the University of Bergen.

Author on 2 IPCC reports

Jansen is 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. He was the coordinating lead author in the 4th (2007) and lead author in the 5th (2013) Assessment Reports of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Jansen was in 2019 awarded the Brøgger prize for lifelong contributions to geological sciences 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 of the past and present, with key contributions to understanding the evolution of ice ages and abrupt climate change. 2014-2019 he is the principal investigator of an ERC Synergy Grant, ice2ice, on abrupt climate changes. He has also served as a member of ERC’s panel for Advanced Grants.

More on both the new Vice Presidents in the ERC press release.

NORCE scientist and working group member and co-author on the SAPEA report “Biodegradability of plastics in the open environment”, Gunhild Bødtker, started her presentation at the recent Avfallsforsk webinar “Marine Littering in Norwegian Fjords” by saying that “biodegradable plastics have some uses that can be a part of the solution, but it shouldn’t be seen as an excuse for littering, and it is not a quick fix”.

The opening sentiment of Gunhild Bødtker is certainly in line with the SAPEA report itself. Bødtker further suggested that one of uses for biodegradable plastics to be explored further, should be uses with high potential of loss, such as fishing nets, buoys, and lines, or where wear during use is inevitable, such as with tyres. In the latter case, the wear results in microplastics, a further reason to explore the use of biodegradable plastics in items that to a large degree abrases during use. Even as biodegradable plastics can have benefits in these areas, one of the main mottos concerning the use of plastics continues to be “reduce, reuse, recycle”.

The Norce scientist also explained the results of her recent experiment at the Bergen Aquarium. In a tank at the aquarium, she studied the biodegradability of some specific kinds of biodegradable plastics in a marine environment similar to the sea near Bergen in Norway. A particularly interesting finding was that water temperature seems to be less important for biodegradation rates in seawater that previously thought. The cold, Norwegian seawater proved to be as effective for biodegradation, as the South Asian waters has been found to be in previous studies. More about this on the Built2biodegrade website, as well as in a recent interview with Gunhild Bødtker on the AE-Bergen Hub website.

With the main topic of the recent webinar being “Marine Littering in Norwegian Fjords”, several of the presentations focused on the clean-up project “Rein Hardangerfjord”. Here, what originated from a smaller fjord clean up-project, resulted in the monumental ambition to clean up the entire Hardangerfjord in western Norway, one of the country’s most scenic fjords. 

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