Friday afternoon (Jan 21st) 25 young scientists of several fields gathered at the Fram centre to partake in a workshop that had stated the intention to examine the heritage from the great scientists, artists and humanists Mikhail Lomonosov and Fridtjof Nansen - what inspiration from these great scientists and statesmen can we find today to address todays challenges in the High North?
The group consisted of people from such sciences as politics, psychology, human geography, energy sciences, anthropology, biology and law in addition to four high school-students, who had all won school-competitions in essay-writing. Thus finding common problems and inspirations alone proved a quite complex task, even with the wonderful mentoring supplied from the University of the Arctics own people and their invited mentors.
After a very long saturday (stretching into sunday for many of the participants), a declaration was formed as a result from the workshop, and this was presented to the participants of the Lomonosov-Nansen seminar marking the official opening of the Nansen-Amundsen celebration 2011 in Norway. Present at this seminar was, in addition to several interested scientists, also the foreign ministers of Norway and Iceland, and the Consul of Arkhangelsk. After the seminar, the workshop was allowed a 15 minute q and a session with the Norwegian minister, Jonas Gahr Støre.
This event was part of the Arctic Frontiers Young Scientist Forum. For more information, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
