February 5, 2020. 13:00-14:30. Egget (The Egg), Studentsenteret, Parkveien 1, Bergen, Norway.
Oceans cover 70% of the Earths’ surface, produce over 50% of the world’s oxygen, regulate our weather and climate patterns, and provides energy, food, medicine, and recreation. However, this invaluable shared resource is under threat due to human-induced ocean warming and acidification, expansion of oceanic dead zones, and unsustainable fishing. Safeguarding our common ocean for future generations is a shared responsibility and a matter of global urgency.
January 28, 2020. 16:00. Arbeidskontoret room, Clarion Hotel the Edge, Tromsö, Norway
The AE Bergen Knowledge Hub, an associated partner of Artic Frontiers, is organizing a Poster presentation at the Arctic Frontiers Science Poster – Knowledge-based development in the Arctic:
Making sense of science for policy under conditions of complexity and uncertainty – MASOS
January 27, 2020. 18:15 – 19:15. Clarion Hotel the Edge, Tromsö, Norway.
Starting from 2020, Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge Hub is an associated partner of Arctic Frontiers.
In this event we will bring together a panel with experience from science advice, policy making and NGOs. Are there sufficient mechanisms available in Norway and other countries to ensure that political decisions are based on the best available and independent scientific knowledge? What are the specific needs in an Arctic context? The panel will debate challenges and knowledge gaps relevant to the radical changes needed in order to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and what systems need to be in place for policy to be anchored in scientific evidence and scientific thinking.
January 16-18, 2020. Covent Garden, 25th floor auditorium, London, also streamed online.
The seminar will bring together researchers supported by the European Research Council (ERC) and the Research Executive Agency (REA). The event will provide a forum for exchange between EC-funded researchers, interested stakeholders and EU staff on the role of science in and for diplomacy.
The Norwegian Church, located in Cardiff Bay, celebrated it’s 150th Anniversary on Sunday 15th December. AE Cardiff supported this special commemorative event.
The Programme
The programme included:
a church service with a reprisal of the first sermon given at the Norwegian Church 150 years ago
a series of talks supported by the University of Bergen, Cardiff University, Hordaland Council and the Welsh Norwegian Society including the Roald Dahl story and the ancient links between languages
a concert with performances from visiting Norwegian musicians Eir Inderhaug, Stian Okland and Marina Kan Selvik
November 4, 2019, 11.30–16.00. The House of Literature, Wergelandsveien 29, 0167 Oslo.
Evidence-informed policy: a Norwegian perspective
A seminar hosted by Academia Europaea Bergen Hub assesses the findings of the SAPEA report ‘Making sense of science for policy’ and reflects on what insights might be applied to science advice in Norway
Prof Eystein Jansen, Director of the AE Bergen Hub, welcomes all to the seminar
The seminar was designed around two linked sessions, one focused on the European dimension of evidence-informed policy and the second examining Norwegian policymaking.
Professor Eystein Jansen, Director of the Bergen Hub, welcomed everyone to the seminar and emphasised the timeliness of the topic under discussion. Professor Ole Petersen, Director of the Cardiff Hub (which coordinated the SAPEA report) gave an introduction to the European Science Advice Mechanism and the role played by academies within it.
Session 1: ‘Making sense of science for policy’ Evidence Review Report
Professor Jeroen van der Sluijs (Bergen), a member of the SAPEA Working Group, presented the key findings of the SAPEA report, with a thought-provoking response provided by Professor Silvio Funtowicz (Bergen) and a lively debate with the audience, with skilful moderation by Professor Matthias Kaiser (Bergen).
Please see the article published in Forskningspolitikk: https://www.fpol.no/gviken/
Themes that came up included:
The issue of bias and the underrepresentation of certain social groups within science
The role of the humanities in evidence-informed policymaking
The potential for including different types of knowledge and extended peer communities in science advice
An interesting case study came from Finland, which is trialling a new approach to science advice, drawing on insights from the European Commission’s Science Advice Mechanism. Professor Risto Nieminen, President of the Finnish Academy, spoke of the contribution that could be made by academies to the design and operation of such a system.
Professors Ole Petersen, Jeroen van der Sluijs, Risto Nieminen and Silvio Funtowicz during the panel discussion in session 1
Session 2: Science advice in Norway
The second half of the seminar put science advice in Norway under the spotlight. Professor Oystein Hov (Norwegian Academy) gave several examples of success and failure of science advice in Norway. Kyrre Lekve (Simula) spoke of two contrasting relationships experienced by science advisers, one with civil servants, the other with politicians.
The closing discussion between the panel and the audience, also moderated by Matthias Kaiser, gave rise to further reflections on science advice in Norway. They included:
The use and potential misuse of scientific knowledge in the context of policymaking
Look out for a full report on the seminar, to be published in the coming weeks.
Prof Oystein Hov, Prof Torbjørn Digernes, Kyrre Lekve and Prof Matthias Kaiser during the panel discussion in session 211th November 2019. For further information please contact Louise Edwards, Knowledge Hub Manager EdwardsL31@cardiff.ac.uk
Saturday 12 October, 11.30-12.15. Viðey, Harpa Second Level, Reykjavik, Iceland
Organized by University of Bergen, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research & Academia Europaea Bergen Knowledge hub.
SPEAKERS
Eystein Jansen, Professor, University of Bergen/Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research: Are Ongoing Climate Change in the Arctic Abrupt in the Perspective of Past Abrupt Changes?
Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, Professor, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen: What are the Expected Future Changes in Arctic and Greenland Climates in the Future Due to Continued Manmade Climate Forcing
Eystein Jansen/Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen: How Vulnerable is the Greenland Ice Sheet?
Tuomas Savolainen will present the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project, describe how the now famous image of M87 was made, and discuss future prospects for studying black holes at event horizon scale resolution.
The Event Horizon Telescope is a global, very long baseline interferometry array operating at 1.3 mm wavelength. The combination of a short observing wavelength and long intercontinental baselines between the participating telescopes allows the EHT to make images at exquisite resolution of 20 microarcseconds – enough to resolve event horizon scale structures around the supermassive black holes in the centre of our galaxy, and in the centre of the radio galaxy M87.
The first EHT observations with an array that had potential to image these black holes took place in April 2017. After almost two years of data processing and analysis, we can now report success. The EHT has successfully imaged the radio source in the centre of M87 and the image reveals a bright, asymmetric ring of emission encompassing a central depression in brightness.
The image is consistent with the predictions for a shadow of a Kerr black hole in General Relativity. The observed properties of the ring are in close agreement with a gravitationally lensed photon ring of a 6.5 billion solar mass black hole.
The lecture starts at 14.15. Refreshments will be served from 14.00.
Tuomas Savolainen
Tuomas Savolainen is an Academy Research Fellow with the Aalto Universitys Anne Lähteenmäki Group and Department of Electronics and Nanoengineering, as well as an Academy Research Fellow with the Metsähovi Radio Observatory.
He is one of the over 200 researchers part of the international Event Horizon Telescopecollaboration, the group responsible for the very first image of a black hole, released April 10, 2019.
The workshop is organized jointly by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Kőszeg (iASK) and the Energy and Sustainable Development Activity of the Academia Europaea Bergen Hub (AE-B), between Sept. 14-19, 2019, in Kőszeg. (Sept. 13 and 20 are the planned travel days.)
Kőszeg (Video 1080 530MB) is a small medieval city, it is about 1 hour drive South of Vienna Airport (VIE, Schwechat), and about 3 hours by train or car from Budapest.
The topic of the workshop is wide, from fundamental research, through applied research and technology, and the effect of these on social sciences.
For example, relativistic heavy ion physics, or nano sciences, their applications for nuclear fusion or fission, and finally the impact of these advances on sustainable development and its connections to energy and natural sciences.
Conference registration and participation management is via the CERN indico website.
Oslo, Norway, 11 – 14 June 2019. The conference will be held at Ingeniørenes Hus Møtesenter, located centrally in Vika in Oslo.
The TYPES meetings are a forum to present new and on-going work in all aspects of type theory and its applications, especially in formalised and computer assisted reasoning and computer programming. The meetings from 1990 to 2008 were annual workshops of a sequence of five EU funded networking projects. Since 2009, TYPES has been run as an independent conference series.
The TYPES areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
foundations of type theory and constructive mathematics;
applications of type theory;
dependently typed programming;
industrial uses of type theory technology;
meta-theoretic studies of type systems;
proof assistants and proof technology;
automation in computer-assisted reasoning;
links between type theory and functional programming;
formalizing mathematics using type theory
We encourage talks proposing new ways of applying type theory. In the spirit of workshops, talks may be based on newly published papers, work submitted for publication, but also work in progress.
The conference is partially supported by COST Action CA15123 EUTypes, the Research Council of Norway, and Academia Europaea Knowledge Hub Region Bergen.
