New national polar research school SEAL kicks off
Doctoral students from across Europe gathered at Kristineberg Marine Research Station on 20 August for the launch of SEAL, Sweden’s first national graduate school in polar research. Some of them joined from a very different setting - on board the Swedish icebreaker Oden, while taking part in an ongoing polar expedition.
“Polar science is gaining strategic importance in Sweden. Our job in SEAL is to strengthen Sweden’s future supply of excellent expertise in the field and improve national and international collaboration across disciplines. This involves all of you,” Hans Linderholm, Head of the research school, told the PhD students as he opened the programme.
The School of Excellence in Arctic and Antarctic Learning (SEAL) brings together 17 doctoral students from research environments in Sweden, China and European countries, including the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, France and Germany. The doctoral students’ backgrounds span the social sciences, humanities, law, natural sciences and technology.
A long-awaited national initiative
Katarina Gårdfeldt, Director of the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, participated at the launch and welcomed the start of the graduate school with an enthusiastic reaction: “Finally!”
Gårdfeldt has worked for many years to establish a national graduate school in polar research and has raised the issue in Sweden’s research and budget processes.
“I am really happy today that the dream we have had for so long is becoming a reality. I am very fond of the idea of people from different disciplines coming together as a critical mass. This creates synergies and the potential to change things for the better in society,” says Katarina Gårdfeldt. .
From sea ice to geopolitics
Målfrid Høistad from Norway is one of the SEAL PhD students. With a background in engineering, she studies sea ice using remote sensing.
“I’m used to approaching questions about the polar regions from a physics and technology perspective. Now I have the opportunity to step outside my own field and learn from other disciplines, including perspectives on geopolitics and Indigenous knowledge. This will help me put my research into a broader context,” says Målfrid Høistad.
Thorsten van der Kooij from the Netherlands has a background in history and international relations. His PhD research will focus on the history of geopolitics in the polar regions, with a particular focus on fisheries.
“I’m looking forward to discussions with the other PhD students and to collaborating with natural scientists to broaden my perspectives. Geopolitics in the polar regions is closely connected to the polar environment, and many different processes come into play,” says Thorsten van der Kooij.
“As a social scientist, I have written and learned about polar environments from a more distant perspective. SEAL offers a more hands-on approach, which is really compelling.”
Hedda Bothin Hanssen studies how climate change affects wildlife and the natural environment in northern Finland, Norway and Sweden, and how these changes affect traditional livelihoods in the region.
“I want to gain a better understanding of the global processes taking place in the Arctic and Antarctic and how they are connected to local changes in the natural environment. With a more interdisciplinary understanding of our polar environments, I hope to be able to present my research in a more meaningful way,” she says.
Contact SEAL
Hans Linderholm, Director of SEAL, hansl@gvc.gu.se
Nils Wallenberg, Director of Studies for SEAL, nils.wallenberg@gvc.gu.se
SEAL is a national, interdisciplinary graduate school funded by the Swedish Research Council, with the aim of advancing polar research in Sweden. SEAL is run by five leading Swedish universities: the University of Gothenburg, Uppsala University, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology and Mid Sweden University. The graduate school is based at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Gothenburg.
Study at SEAL
