The theme of the 11th annual research seminar of the Arctic Doctoral Programme (ARKTIS) is this year “Reconstructing change and resilience in environmental and social conditions – what can we learn from the past for the future”.

Past climatic changes can be traced back to different time horizons with different methods, such as analyzing ice core samples, or gathering of indigenous oral tradition knowledge. On the contrary to what has been assumed so far, in addition to climatic variations also social factors and changes in animal and plant species essential to humans have affected the preconditions of the existence of the arctic communities. Understanding changes that in the past have been fatal to communities can help us to understand the impacts of the ongoing abrupt climate change and support with adaptation to the changes in the Arctic.

Arctic Doctoral Programme, ARKTIS, approaches this subject in a multidisciplinary way by providing keynote speeches by internationally acknowledged researchers from many disciplinary backgrounds as well as presentations by ARKTIS doctoral candidates of their ongoing doctoral research. Discussions across disciplinary boundaries have an important role in the seminar.

The five keynote speakers of the seminar are professor emerita Julie Cruikshank (University of British Columbia, Canada), research professor Bruce Forbes (Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland), Dr. Øyvind Paasche (Universitetet i Bergen, Norway), Dr. Hans Tømmervik (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, Norway) and Dr. Gro Ween (University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK).

ARKTIS is a multidisciplinary doctoral programme coordinated by the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland. ARKTIS has 22 doctoral students enrolled at the universities of Lapland, Oulu, Eastern Finland and Helsinki. The disciplinary background of the doctoral students comprises both social sciences such as sociology, political science, environmental politics and international relations, economy, cultural studies, law and education and natural sciences, for example biology, chemistry, geophysics and geography. So far thirteen doctors have graduated from the programme.

The annual research seminar of the Arctic Doctoral Programme will take place on 4–5 April at the Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi, Finland (Arktikum House, address: Pohjoisranta 4). The language of the seminar is English. The seminar welcomes all the PhD students, researchers and representatives of the media interested in the seminar topic to attend.

The website of the seminar: www.arcticcentre.org/arktis

More information:
Senior researcher, Coordinator Päivi Soppela, ARKTIS doctoral programme
+358 (0)400 138 805
paivi.soppela (at) ulapland.fi

Researcher Ilona Mettiäinen
+358 (0)40 484 4273
ilona.mettiainen (at) ulapland.fi

Research professor Bruce Forbes
+358 40 8479202
bforbes (at) ulapland.fi