Oran Young participated in the initial working group of the Circumpolar Universities Association that studied the possiblity of establishing an "Arctic university" and was lead editor of the foundational report With Shared Voices: Launching the University of the Arctic. He then served as the inaugural chair of the UArctic Board of Governors from 2001 to 2007. His activity in UArctic continues today in the Thematic Network on Science Diplomacy.

During his extensive career, Oran Young has been a strong promoter of geopolitical attention to the Arctic. He is a leader in studies of international governance and environmental institutions, and the world's foremost expert on these themes in the Arctic.

Oran Young holds a PhD and a master's degree from Yale University and a bachelor's degree from Harvard University. He has been an Adjunct Professor at UiT and has spent most of his career at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, which is part of the University of California Santa Barbara.

As a political scientist and environmental researcher, he is recognized for his interdisciplinary research on international institution building, resource management and the human dimension of climate change in the Arctic.

Over several decades, Young has had a central role in founding and development of a number of research institutions and collaborative forums for the Arctic. This had played important political and scientific roles to ensure peaceful international cooperation and sustainable management in the Arctic. Young has also contributed to establishing a knowledge-based public discourse about management in the Arctic and an informed dialogue with political decision-makers.

- We stand at a critical juncture regarding international cooperation in the Arctic, and we need to reinvent our institutions, so they are well suited for the next decades. We are in need of creative engagement between the policy and scientific communities to come up with solutions to the new challenges in the Arctic, Young says.

Oran Young will receive the Mohn Prize during the Arctic Frontiers conference in 2024. He will give a speech at the award ceremony and contribute with several lectures during the conference.

Read the original article here: The Mohn Prize | UiT