As UArctic Chair, and as member of the Science Optimisation Advisory Group of SIOS, she is focusing on increasing the Nordic links within the High Arctic, especially between North Greenland and Svalbard. During her first year as UArctic Chair, she has coordinated a Svalbard Strategic Grant proposal for the project called: Using Svalbard and Greenland for research and higher education - interdisciplinary cooperation in a Pan-Arctic perspective combining SIOS and GIOS‘, in short Bridging the Fram Strait. SIOS is Svalbard Integrated Observing System, and GIOS is Greenland Integrated Observing System.
The Bridging the Fram Strait project held a workshop in October 2022 in Copenhagen, organised in collaboration with the SIOS and GIOS leadership. Both key SIOS and GIOS researchers, research station leaders and research administrative staff from research councils, ministries, and the military, all using the Nordic Arctic, were represented. The workshop outcome were clear identification of potentials for increased research collaboration, but also for collaboration on higher education and logistics. One of the ambitions that Hanne presented in her keynote could to to establish a vision for developing an innovative, unique and deeper institutionalized Arctic university collaboration for Arctic Earth System Science education. Many SIOS, GIOS and UArctic members could fit very naturally into such new committing collaboration, which could probably also have close collaboration with the EU (and their EU universities) and the Arctic Council.