The shortlisted nominees are:

  • Mary Albert, Toku Oshima, Lene Kielsen Holm (posthumous), Christopher Polashenski, Weiyang (Fiona) Li, Hunter Snyder, Alyssa Pantaleo: Community-led Investments in Climate & Food Security: An Inclusive Model for Arctic Energy Transitions
  • N. Stuart Harris: Temperature is a Vital Sign: Climate Change and Population Health in Alaska’s Northwest Arctic
  • Scott Hosking, Tom Andersson, Ellen Bowler, James Byrne, Alden Conner and the team: IceNet: AI Arctic sea ice forecasts for people and wildlife
  • Minik Thorleif Rosing: Glacial Rock Flour – a simple natural agent in mitigating the global polycrisis

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award recognizes scientific and academic ideas that are action-oriented and hold potential for addressing the challenges and critical needs posed by climate change in the Arctic region. The prize comes with 100,000 euro of unrestricted funds, intended to help develop the ideas through outreach, engagement, and communication.

The call for nominations ran from February 1 to April 30. After a thorough review and evaluation, the UArctic Academic Advisory Board (Mimir), who serves as the Award Evaluation Committee, selected four nominated ideas to continue to the final round. The final evaluation includes online interviews where the shortlisted candidates get a chance to introduce their ideas in more detail to the Mimir representatives.

The four ideas selected for the final round of evaluation all show “great potential for improving the ability to deal with specific major issues raised by climate change. Based on variable combinations of scientific and vernacular knowledge, they propose actions that can have significant impacts by themselves, and to serve as transferable models for other regions facing similar issues,” commented Gérard Duhaime, evaluation committee member. Arja Rautio, Mimir Chair, further elaborated that ”these four ideas are focusing on food security, population health, sea ice conditions and ocean acidification, which are main elements of the effects of climate change found all around in the Arctic. Solutions for these challenges will help Arctic populations to adapt and mitigate in a sustainable way in the case regions, but they can be used more broadly.”

Here is more information about the shortlisted nominees for the 2023 Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award:

Mary Albert, Toku Oshima, Lene Kielsen Holm (posthumous), Christopher Polashenski, Weiyang (Fiona) Li, Hunter Snyder, and Alyssa Pantaleo are developing solar-powered, locally and cooperatively owned portable fish-drying chambers in Greenland as a sustainable transition to a low-carbon future for Arctic coastal communities to help with local food security, and to increase income for fishers and improve energy security while investing in and respecting traditional knowledge, local decision-making, economic empowerment, self-determination and food security. Toku Oshima is problem solver and hunter-fisher from Qaanaaq, Greenland. Lene Kielsen Holm held several high-level positions in the Greenlandic Government and was internationally respected for her integrity, knowledge, professional instill and commitment to her nation and culture. Professor Albert, Assist. Prof. Li, PhD Candidate Pantaleo, Adjunct Assoc. Prof. Polashenski, and Research Scientist Snyder are based at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA. Dr. Albert and team were nominated by Melody Brown Burkins, Director of the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth College.

N. Stuart Harris is working with the Maniilaq Association to create a program of health monitoring with colleagues in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska to quantify and qualify the impacts of climate change on human health using the lens of emergency medical care to provide evidence to impact health-informed decision making. Dr. Harris is based at Massachusetts General Hospital in the Department of Emergency Medicine and was nominated by Brittany Janis, Associate Director the Arctic Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, Boston, MA, USA.

Scott Hosking and his team, including Tom Andersson, Ellen Bowler, James Byrne, and Alden Conner, are working in close partnership with WWF and the Government of Nunavut Department of Environment using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to increase the accuracy and range of sea ice forecasts to help Arctic residents to prepare and adapt to changing ice conditions. Dr. Hosking is a senior research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and Science Lead for AI at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). Mr. Andersson and Dr. Bowler are machine learning researchers at BAS and Mr. Byrne is a research software engineer also at BAS. Dr. Conner is a senior researcher with the Alan Turing Institute. The team was nominated by Henry Burgess, Head, NERC Arctic Office, UK.

Minik Thorleif Rosing, the first Greenlander to receive a university degree in science, is exploring the use of mineral powder abraded from the Greenland bedrock by the movement of the Greenland Ice Sheet to increase crop yield in tropical and subtropical soils lacking in minerals, mitigate the impacts of ocean acidification and develop new business opportunities for the people of Greenland. Dr. Rosing is a Professor of Geology at the GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He was nominated by Dr. Naja Mikkelsen, senior research scientist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

The third Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award will be announced at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík in October 2023. The Award is a collaboration between Arctic Circle and UArctic.

 

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award provides high-level recognition for innovative ideas that transform knowledge into action to help address the impacts of climate change in the Arctic. The prize comes with a 100,000 euro unrestricted grant that is intended to help develop the ideas through outreach, engagement, and communication.

Arctic Circle is the largest network of international dialogue and cooperation on the future of the Arctic and our planet. It is an open democratic platform with participation from governments, organizations, corporations, universities, think tanks, environmental associations, Indigenous communities, concerned citizens, and others. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan.

UArctic is a network of nearly 200 universities, colleges, research institutes, and other organizations concerned with education and research in and about the Arctic. UArctic builds and strengthens collective resources and infrastructures that enable member institutions to better serve their constituents and their regions. Through cooperation in education, research, and outreach UArctic enhances human capacity in the North, promotes viable communities and sustainable economies, and forges global partnerships.