Global challenges
Bergen Research Summer School seeks to address some of the most pressing global challenges of our time.
Main content
Bergen is an international trading port situated on the rim of enormous natural resources in wild and untouched nature—all in need of stewardship for a sustainable future.
We believe that all disciplines have an obligation to challenge the international development agenda and to seek cross-disciplinary alternatives to the global challenges facing us. Since 2021, our research school emphasises activities around climate, energy and the environment; health; inequality and governance; and discourses on societal challenges.
Definitions and understandings of global challenges are many. The United Nations has formulated a series of Sustainable Development Goals, the World Economic Forum publishes Global Risk Reports, and the UNDP has its frequent Human Development Report.
For Bergen Summer Research School, such measures will be points of departure, rather than frameworks, for critical reflection and debate.
Every year, we welcome 100 PhD candidates to take one of several parallel PhD-level courses, all based in some of Bergen’s best research groups, and each addressing important global challenges. Natural resources, health, inequality, migration, governance, higher education and culture are some recurring themes.
Bergen Summer Research School is a partnership of NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Chr. Michelsen Institute, and NORCE Norwegian Research Centre AS, under the leadership of the University of Bergen.
The five partner institutions all contribute critical analysis of power structures and promote a diversified and sustainable society. We all play our part in addressing global challenges and developing skills and initiative to promote a sustainable future.
The Bergen Summer Research School is organised by Global Challenges.
Our past activities
2023: Childhood — Nurturing care for building the future
Professor Ingunn Marie Stadskleiv Engebretsen, Centre for International Health, UiB
2022: Understanding and addressing inequality
Professor Haldis Haukanes, Department of Health Promotion and Development, UiB
2021: Science and Society towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Associate Professor Katja Enberg, Department of Biological Sciences (BIO), UiB
2020: Actionable knowledge to meet global challenges
Professor Håvard Haarstad, Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET), Department of Geography, UiB
2019: Policies for a sustainable future
Professor Edvard Hviding, Department of Social Anthropology, UiB
2018: Global Challenges
Professor Ole Frithjof Norheim, Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care, UiB
2017: Global Challenges
Dr. Tore Sæterdal, Assistant Director, UiB Global
2016 Water, Climate and Society
Professor Terje Tvedt, Department of Geography, UiB
2015 SDGs to Meet Global Development Challenges
Professor Rune Nilsen, Centre for International Health, UiB
2014 Governance to meet Global Development Challenges
Professor Siri Gloppen, Department of Comparative Politics, UiB/CMI
2013 Food as a Global Development Challenge
Professor Vigdis Vandvik, Department of Biology, UiB
2012 PhD Conference: Transnational Migration and Global Development
Professor Mette Andersson, Department of Sociology, UiB
2011 Norms, Values, Language and Culture: Resources and Limitations
Professor Anne Katrine Bang, Division of Research Management, UiB
2010 Global Health in Bio-Medical, Social and Cultural Perspectives
Professor Thorkild Tylleskär, Centre for International Health, UiB
2009 Climate, Environment and Energy
Dr. Asuncion Lera St.Clair, Department of Sociology, UiB
2008 Global Poverty
Dr. Asuncion Lera St.Clair, Department of Sociology, UiB
Scientific Director
A scientific director and committe is appointed every year.
Professor Erlend Eidsvik, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, is scientific director for BSRS 2024.
He is a geographer and a professor of sustainability education at Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Sciences and a Professor II in geography at UIT The Arctic University of Norway.
Eidsvik holds a PhD in geography from the University of Bergen.
