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Dear Members of Academia Europaea in the Nordic and Baltic Regions,

As we approach the end of the year, I would like to share some reflections on our concerns and activities at the Bergen Hub.

This year has once again been profoundly affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has reshaped the landscape for research and academic life across Europe. The aggression and its broader geopolitical implications have diminished security and limited opportunities for peaceful scientific collaboration and the open exchange of ideas and results. Our Hub’s activities have focused significantly on understanding these challenges.

We now find ourselves in a situation where research funding competes increasingly with military expenditures, raising concerns about the norms of openness in science. The potential for research outcomes to be misused for hostile purposes against our European democracies (the Dual Use dilemma) is a pressing issue.

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, marked by horrific atrocities against civilians, further complicate this landscape. Additionally, the return of the Trump administration in the USA creates uncertainties for rational, science-based governance in the world’s largest economy, which could have global repercussions for academia.

The current climate for research is undeniably precarious. Europe is lagging in research-based innovation compared to the USA and China, and the long-term outlook appears challenging. However, there are positive developments also. In my role as Vice-President of the ERC, overseeing Physical Sciences and Engineering, I have seen influential reports emerge as we approach the 10th EU Framework Programme for research. The Draghi report on the future of European competitiveness, the Letta report on the European internal market, and the Heitor report on the design of the 10th Framework Program all commend the ERC’s achievements in advancing world-class frontier science. These reports advocate for the extension of the ERC and the restructuring of the European research and innovation landscape, following the ERC’s model of excellence and independent governance. If these recommendations are implemented, they could foster the emergence of more leading research groups in Europe, strengthening our research and innovation base against global competition. This development aligns closely with the strategic goals of Academia Europaea.

In 2024, as in the previous year, our Hub’s activities have focused especially on the Arctic. We successfully 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. And 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; Rethinking Arctic – Scenarios on future Scientific cooperation and diplomacy . We have just finished a workshop at the Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies, kicked-off with a public event; Climate Diplomacy on Thin Ice: Navigating Arctic Cooperation & Polar Governance. The outcomes of the workshop will be both a scientific paper and policy briefs on future perspectives of Arctic science cooperation and science diplomacy, pointing towards the upcoming International Polar Year in 2032.

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 central theme will be on historical languages. We look forward to welcoming further membership initiatives in the coming year.

The membership in our regions needs renewal, and I will use this opportunity to encourage all to be active in the ongoing nomination cycle.

I wish all our members a peaceful and relaxing holiday period, in the hope that next year we will see the world coming somewhat back to its senses.

 

Eystein

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Abel Prize for 2024 to Michel Talagrand of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France.

Michel Talagrand receives the prize for his work in probability theory and stochastic processes. From the outset, the development of probability theory was motivated by problems that arose in the context of gambling or assessing risks. The common theme in Michel Talagrand’s groundbreaking discoveries is working with and understanding the random processes we see all around us. It has now become apparent that a thorough understanding of random phenomena is essential in today’s world. For example, random algorithms underpin our weather forecasting and large language models.

The modern world is a constant flow of random events, and understanding that randomness has impacts on everything from business logistics to condensed-matter physics. Much of Talagrand’s work involves understanding and utilising the “Gaussian distribution”, often better known as the “normal distribution” or – thanks to its shape – the “bell curve”. Our whole life is guided by the Gaussian distribution: the weight of babies at birth, the test results students get at school and the ages athletes retire at are all seemingly random events that neatly follow the Gaussian distribution.

Three specific areas

The Abel Prize is given for three specific areas of Talagrand’s work:

Suprema of stochastic processes – A stochastic process produces a sequence of random values, and the “supremum” is the largest value to be expected from a collection of those values. If the height of waves crashing on a beach is a stochastic process, it is useful to know what the largest wave to hit the beach next year is likely to be.

Concentration of measures – Counterintuitively, when a process depends on a range of different sources of randomness, instead of getting more complicated, it is possible for the different random factors to compensate for each other and produce more predictable results. Talagrand has given sharp quantitative estimates for this.

Spin glass – Leaving abstract probability theory behind, a “spin glass” is a special form of matter that atoms can arrange themselves in, much to the initial surprise of physicists. Talagrand used his knowledge of statistics and probability to prove limits on how spin glass matter can behave, and thereby completed the proof of Giorgio Parisi’s Nobel Prize winning work (2021).

“Talagrand is an exceptional mathematician, and a formidable problem solver. He has made profound contributions to our understanding of random, and in particular, Gaussian, processes. His work has reshaped several areas of probability theory. Furthermore, his proof of the celebrated Parisi formula for free energy of spin glasses is an amazing accomplishment,” says Professor Helge Holden, chair of the Abel Prize Committee.

The Abel Prize is awarded by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Read more at the website of the academy. 

 

 

If the previous covid-affected two years were exceptional, the year that now comes to a close has been no less exceptional. I am thinking of the Russian aggression and the war in Ukraine with all its atrocities, loss of lives and senseless destruction. The effects of the war have been profound on many aspects of academic life, most dramatically for our Ukrainian colleagues who have had to suspend their work, flee their workplace, home and country.

I am happy to have seen many examples of solidarity and various forms of help extended, and hope that strong support from academics and their institutions actively will support Ukraine in rebuilding a strong, democratic research nation when the war eventually is over. This will be a costly but well spent use of resources. Many of our Russian colleagues have been negatively affected as research collaboration between Russian institutions and the rest of Europe have come to a halt, and long-term research programmes have been abruptly terminated. These measures have been necessary, but individual researchers suffer.

Many of these are colleagues who oppose the invasion and are victims of the strong oppression of free thinking imposed by Putin´s regime. Within the remit of our Hub, the high geopolitical tensions have specially affected those countries who are neighbours to Russia and Ukraine, but all countries are affected in various ways, e.g. through reductions of existing research networks, restrictions of research funding due to financial emergencies caused by increased energy prices and prioritization of military spending over other aspects of public spending, such as on research.  

The changing geopolitical situation also affects science diplomacy. Science has played an important role in creating a situation of collaboration and lowered tensions in the Arctic, for instance during the cold war. This situation is now significantly worsened by the war in Ukraine. The war has led to a suspension of work in the Arctic Council, and potential losses of critical observations of key importance for monitoring the strong changes in Arctic climate. Our Hub follows this dangerous development with the production of a special report on the fate of climate diplomacy after the war in Ukraine, due next year, and a special side event during the Arctic Frontiers conference on Feb 2, 2023 (see more info elsewhere in this newsletter).  

In 2022 the Hub has increased its activities as we have moved out of covid-restrictions, and we hope this will allow for more person-to-person meetings and increased activities in 2023.  

AE organised a cross-class Task Force on environment, climate and sustainability issues led by Prof. Verena Winiwarter which was administratively supported by our hub. The report from the Task Force also included a survey of our members and I am happy that we received many good suggestions for the future work on these issues and that many members have volunteered to take part. The AE Board is now setting up a more permanent Task Force, in which it is likely that I will take part. I hope many of the members in our region will take part as plans evolve.  

We have organized or co-organised several events in 2022, and plans are emerging for 2023. Please share with us any ideas or suggestions you might have for events. One thing we wish to do is to create some events on specific pan-Nordic/Baltic aspects of research and research policy, and and hope to have members outside of Bergen involved in the planning and execution of these.  

 The Hub has in 2022 entered into an agreement with the Young Academy of Europe to assist in some of their administrative tasks. The Young Academy and the voice of young scholars are critical for the future of European Research, and we are pleased to offer help.  

 In September we were visited by Sierd Cloething, for many years AE president and an important person for strengthening the Bergen Hub, something we are very grateful for. We could tap into Sierd´s Earth Science expertise and his experiences in Science Advice for Policy through two guest lectures during the visit. Earlier this year we were visited by Abel Prize laurate Laszlo Lovacs, who is also Director of the AE Budapest Hub and had the opportunity to discuss Hub-to-Hub collaboration, an area that AE aims to strengthen in the time to come.  

In 2022 we can welcome 47 new members of AE from our region. I would like to wish all new members warmly welcome and hope we can see many of you in our upcoming activities. We still have a way to go to ensure that the leading scholars in our region become AE members, and I would also like to see a more gender balanced and younger membership. I therefore hope that the coming nomination cycle will engage more of our members with these aspects in mind. So please nominate! 

I am very pleased that the agreement between AE and The University of Bergen was renewed for 4 more years in 2021. This gives the hub financial and administrative support a nice platform to operate from.  

When the year comes to an end, I would specifically like to thank the Hub-staff, Kristin and Nils Olav for their hard work, dedication and support in 2022. I know this is much appreciated across the Academy.  

I am a strong supporter of scientific excellence and the key importance of curiosity driven frontier research. The ERC is a remarkably successful and a premier funder of such research. I have had the pleasure of serving this fantastic organisation in the last years through its Scientific Council. In the following 3 years I will extend this work,serving as Vice-President for the Physical Sciences and Engineering Domain of the ERC, which I will combine with my AE duties. Despite all the uncertainty we live through, I do hope that the importance of basic science will rightfully be acknowledged in Europe. Our future as a region will very much depend on the creative minds of scientists who can express and pursue their best ideas. Thus, the two missions of AE and ERC have a lot in common.  

Best wishes for the Season and the coming year! 

Eystein 

Professor Lise Øvreås has been elected new president of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She will be the third woman to hold this top position.

Lise Øvreås is Professor of Geomicrobiology and Director of the Center for Sustainable Seas at the University of Bergen (UiB), and Professor II at UNIS. She has broad management experience and a strong national and international career.

– I greatly appreciate being elected president of the Academy, and I look forward to taking part in its further development, says Øvreås.

In her election speech, she mentioned sustainable change, scientific advice, and the promotion of free and independent research as some of her flagship issues for the Academy in the future.

Sustainability, the sea, and academia

Øvreås is educated at UiB and has, among other things, been vice dean for research at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. As director of Ocean Sustainability Bergen, scientific advice and the UN’s sustainability goals are two of her fields of experience.

She has been a member of the Academy of Sciences since 2013 and has previously been a board member and vice president. She represents Norway in the European Academy Science Advisory Council (EASAC) and is a member of the National Committee for the Year of Marine Research.

UiB Rector Margareth Hagen congratulates Lise Øvreås on an important position:

– The Academy of Sciences plays an important role in promoting science both in Norway and internationally, and Lise Øvreås, with her background in ocean and sustainability, is the right person to lead the academy further, says Hagen.

Third woman since 1857

Øvreås joins the leadership position in January 2022 and is elected for three years. She takes over from Hans-Petter Graver, UiO, who has been president since 2019. The president is also chairman of the board.

Øvreås is the third woman among 48 leaders in the Academy of Sciences since 1857. Her predecessors have been Professor Inger Moen (1998-2003) and Professor Kirsti Strøm Bull (2012-2015), both from the University of Oslo.

You can read this article, written by Åshild Nylund, in Norwegian here.