Happy Thor Heyerdahl Summer School students

Evy Jørgensen

The Thor Heyerdahl Summer School's 'Environmental Governance' course at UMB started 20 June and ended 1 July. The participants were young researchers and PhD fellows from 20 countries.

The goal of this new initiative has been to bring renowned researchers of environmental governance to work with a selected group of PhD students/young researchers from all over the world, creating a forum for PhD fellows and researchers in environmental governance across the globe. This will increase the participants' skills in analysis of environmental policy issues and provide insight into various strategies to solve the climate challenges.

Oscar Schmidt and Ricky Lawton Photo: Evy Jørgensen

Two of the students, Oscar Schmidt and Ricky Lawton, were interviewed by T. Moe at UMB. This is what they told us:

- I have had great benefit from the summer school at UMB and I am very happy with the arrangement. The combination of excellent speakers addressing relevant subjects and innovative approaches, and group work where participants were challenged academically, have been very useful, says Ricky Lawton, a PhD student at the University of York in England.

Doctoral Student Oscar Schmidt at the Humboldt University in Berlin says both the width and interdisciplinarity in the summer school program has been good.

- The participants are from different countries facing different problems and having different professional backgrounds, for example, engineering or economics. It has made our discussions interesting and educational. Teaching has also been very good and the lecturers have been open to questions and fruitful discussions, says Schmidt.

Meeting place for professional exchange
The summer school has been and will also in the future be a meeting place for young scientists and is a great opportunity to become a part of the network of researchers worldwide with similar professional interests.

- In groups we worked on a given topic while the groups were put together of participants from different countries having different experiences and background knowledge. This is the way you get different views on the issues, say Schmidt and Lawton.

The first summer school
Thor Heyerdahl Summer School was held for the first time this year. There has been considerable interest in participating in the summer school and the participants were carefully selected, and a number of national and international experts gave lectures there. The arrangement was coordinated by the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric) at UMB in cooperation with the Thor Heyerdahl Institute, CICERO, Fridtjof Nansen Institute and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Summer School is co-financed by the Norwegian Research Council. Read more...

- Invited speakers and participants have all done a great job. There has been hectic, but good day for us all. Involvement by participants in discussing key issues has been great and I am impressed with the participants' skills and knowledge. I hope we can provide the resources necessary for next year's summer school which will focus on international environmental agreements. The idea is to establish this as a permanent offer at UMB and thus strengthen our contribution to the professional field of international environmental governance, says Professor Arild Vatn at Noragric.

By Torunn Moe, UMB Communication Dept. (Norwegian version)

Elinor Ostrom Photo: Evy Jørgensen

Nobel Laureate in Economics Elinor Ostrom
Thor Heyerdahl International Day was celebrated at UMB 27 June and participants at the summer school took part in this event.

Published: 06.07.11
Updated: 07.07.11
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- Noragric

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