THE UiB MAGAZINE.
2017/2018
Research and education at the University of Bergen
THE PLASTIC WHALE MARINE POLLUTION ON THE AGENDA page 19
ALSO READ ABOUT...
CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE page 4 COOPERATION WITH CHINA page 14 ARE WE SAFE ONLINE? page 42 ...AND MUCH MORE
contents 2017/2018
RESEARCH IN FRONT
4 6 8 10 12 14 16 19 world wide uib 22 the uib interview 24
Centre of Excellence Combining psychology and anthropology Media language and poverty Mapping climate sensitivity Decision-making in child protection systems
Good relations with China Islandic art in Bergen The Plastic Whale Our international networks Professor Michael Fellows
RESEARCHERS TO WATCH
28 Małgorzata A. Cyndecka: State support 30 Yvette Peters: Political inequality 32 Simona Chera: Diabetes
34 36 38 the p d interview 40 42 postcard from bergen 43 the last picture 44 education uib
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Professor Anne Berit Guttormsen: excellence in teaching Mobile media Experience-based learning
Sarah Uffelmann Szeltner Safety online Oda Bjerkan, Leader of Bergen Student Society Growing micro-algae
words from the rector
KNOWLEDGE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER THE UiB MAGAZINE 2017/2018 Annual research and education magazine from the University of Bergen (UiB)
Knowledge that shapes society is the vision of our university's strategy, and I believe it to be more important than ever. In a time where our universities and societies are being challenged by fake news, alter- native facts and a descending confidence in media and politicians – our university has a key role. Through research, education, disse mination and innovation our contributions is crucial for securing and developing our societies. This spring there has been elections at our university and I am
EDITORIAL Publisher: Ingar Myking Editors: Sverre Ole Drønen, sverre.dronen@uib.no Ole M. Kvamme, ole.kvamme@uib.no
thankful for being re-elected for four new years as rector of UiB. Some of The Rectors will after the summer return to their academic work while the current dean at The Faculty of Humanities, Margareth Hagen, will become the new deputy rector. The strategy, “Ocean, Life, Society”, will be the basis for our work on developing UiB – also in the next four years. We will continue to develop UiB as an international research university where academic diversity and high quality are fundamental. In the knowledge clusters, we will develop education programs of the future, rooted in – and closely connected to – outstanding research environments. In the magazine, you will learn more about important projects at our university and you will hear from, and about, Professor Christopher Henshilwood and others of our foremost researchers. Henshilwood and The Centre for Early Human Behaviour is a great example of our university being an international oriented university that focuses on interdisciplinary cooperation. You will also learn more about the story behind the “Plastic whale” that stranded by shore at Sotra on the west coast of Norway. The goose-beaked whale is very rare at these shores, and it was therefore decided that the whale should be given to the University Museum of Bergen. When scientist opened the whale’s stomach, they found 45 large pieces of plastic in its stomach, the probable cause of the whale’s disease. The whale has been featured in a large number of foreign media and has become a symbol of the necessity of doing something about the health of our oceans. Without the addition of new talent, our activity would grind to a halt. In the magazine, you will therefore also meet the researchers of the future, like the ones of Yvette Peters and Simona Chera. One can also read more about education at our university and among other things, the new study programs in Media City Bergen will be presented. The magazine will give you an insight into our broad activity. Our goal is to deliver world leading research and education that forms the society. An important part of our job is also to disseminate our work so that the rest of the society can take advantage of it. Enjoy the reading!
TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE REVISION Amesto Translations AS DESIGN, LAYOUT & PRODUCTION Bodoni AS Lars O. Haaheim, Division of Communication, UiB Front page: Overhaus AS CONTACT DETAILS Postal address: Nygårdsgaten 5, 5015 Bergen, Norway Telephone: (+47) 55 58 00 00 E-mail: post@ka.uib.no Website: uib.no/en CIRCULATION 4,000 Print: Bodoni AS ISSN 1894-8405 (print edition) ISSN 2387-2128 (electronic edition) ABOUT UiB The University of Bergen (UiB) has 16,500 students and 3,600 staff Rector: Dag Rune Olsen University Director: Kjell Bernstrøm PHOTO: Eivind Senneset
Dag Rune Olsen Rector, University of Bergen Follow me on Twitter @UiBrector_Olsen
Staff writers: Kim E. Andreassen Sverre Ole Drønen Olaf Erlend Gundersen Anders Kjetland Hilde K. Kvalvaag Solfrid T. Langeland Monica Roos Elin Espe Stensvand Jens Helleland Ådnanes
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RESEARCH IN FRONT | centre for early human behaviour
Centre for Early Human Behaviour awarded SFF status Principal investigator Christopher Henshilwood is very pleased that the Centre for Early Human Behaviour has been awarded status as a new Norwegian Centre of Excellence. Photo: Eivind Senneset
Christopher Henshilwood and the new Centre for Early Human Behaviour have been awarded Centre of Excellence-status (SFF). The research done at the centre that warrants this status is deemed to be ambitious and innovative, with a potential for achieving trailblazing results.
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he Centre for Early Human Behaviour (EHB) Homo Sapiens Behavioural Evolution 100 – 50 000 Years, South Africa will be managed by Professor Christopher Henshilwood at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at UiB.
Very pleased “I am extremely happy,” Henshilwood says. “This is something we have been looking forward to for a long time. We were hopeful that we would make the grade, but competition is keen, 4
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and we did not feel certain we would get SFF status. So this is fantastic news. The point of the centre will be to create cross-disciplinary colla boration and research that will result in providing new and better answers concerning how our ancestors lived. It is particularly gratifying that p eople in all the various academic environ ments have become so keenly interested when they heard about the project,” Henshilwood explains.
Funding for a decade The status offers enormous oppor tunities for the new centre. In this
grant round, the Research Council has allocated a total of 1.5 billion NOK to ten new centres. This means that on average each centre will get 15 million NOK over a ten-year period. As its title denotes, the Centre for Early Human Behaviour will conduct research on how our early ancestors lived and behaved. Although the centre will be part of the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, this is an inter disciplinary project that will involve researchers of climate, geology, psychology and other scientific fields. “Our collaboration will enable us
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Norwegian Centres of Excellence (SFF) • The SFF scheme is the Research Council of Norway’s highest incentive to promote quality in Norwegian research.
Centre for Early Human Behaviour • The Centre for Early Human Behaviour (EHB) comprises researchers from various branches of science, including archaeology, geology and micromorphology, climate construction, dating, biological and medical psychology and psychosocial science.
• UiB now has five centres of excellence:
• Professor Christopher Henshilwood manages the centre.
- The Centre for Early Human Behaviour
• The centre will have six research groups. The groups will be chaired by: Christopher Henshilwood, Dr. Andrea Bender, Professor Eystein Jansen, Dr. Karen Van Niekerk (all from UiB), Dr.Carin Andersson Dahl from Uni Research Climate and Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London.
- Birkeland Centre for Space Science - Centre for Intervention Science in Maternal and Child Health - Centre for Geobiology (CGB) - Centre for Cancer Biomarkers (CCBIO). • Long-term, generous funding of the centres yields cutting-edge research of international calibre. • The SFF scheme is particularly focused on long-range activity. Whereas ordinary grants normally cover a three-year period, SFF grants enable funding for up to ten years.
to put together a more holistic picture of the daily lives of early humans: the changes they went through, the way their brains changed and how the societies they lived in have changed over time: the way things were, from their social structure to their climate. This will give us perspective and will have substantial impact. At the same time, this will enable us to be thorough in a narrow field, we will also have an enhanced opportunity to put together more pieces of the composite puzzle,” Henshilwood says.
Solid recognition Rector Dag Rune Olsen is also happy that yet another centre at UiB has received SFF status. “We are extremely glad that the Centre for Early Human Behaviour has been awarded Centre of Excel-
lence status. This is solid recognition for an interdisciplinary project, with Professor Christopher Henshilwood leading it, that has been at the forefront for many years. The status of research excellence will enable the project to make even greater strides in the years to come,” UiB Rector Dag Rune Olsen says. The interdisciplinary approach, according to Rector Olsen, is a good example of what can be achieved through good collaboration. “The centre, which will compile scientific evidence of our human ancestors’ development, bases its activity on technology and expertise from several excellent research environments at the University of Bergen. This is a shining example of what can be achieved when we utilize one of the university’s strongest assets – broad scientific expertise,” says Dag Rune Olsen.
Strict requirements and tough competition The SFF scheme is a support initiative through the Research Council of Norway that enables the country’s foremost scientific environments the opportunity to organize themselves as centres and achieve ambitious scientific objectives. The research at the centres must be innovative and show a great po-
tential for achieving trailblazing results that can push back the boundaries of international research know ledge. The main criterion for prioritizing applications to SFF is scientific quality of high international calibre. This applies both to planned research and to the centre’s scientific management. The centres must be active in training researchers, and they must be involved in comprehensive inter national collaboration. The Research Council received a total of 150 applications for SFF status in conjunction with this awards round. Thirty-four centres, including four from the University of Bergen, were invited to submit a more detailed application in the second round. Of these, ten centres were granted SFF status. This is the fourth time the Research Council of Norway confers SFF statuses. Since the first time the status was awarded in 2003, a total of 44 centres have received SFF status. Including this round of awards, the University of Bergen can now boast five centres of excellence.
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RESEARCH IN FRONT | andrea bender
Combining psychology and anthropology The Blombos Cave in South Africa. Photo: TRACSYMBOLS
Andrea Bender combines psychology and anthropology to observe how our language and culture shape the way we perceive the world.
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few years ago, Dr. Andrea Bender was an anthropologist and chair of an international research group at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research ZiF, Bielefeld. Now, she is an associate professor at the Department of Psychosocial Science at the University of Bergen (UiB). “I started with anthropology because I was interested in how people in different cultures perceive the world and think about it. But then I realised that the discipline that could tell me even more about what perceiving, thinking and other cognitive activities really mean, is cognitive psychology,” explains Bender. “One of the strengths of the Department of Psychosocial Science 6
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in Bergen is that it is home to such a broad variety of perspectives. This is exactly what creates the conditions for new ideas, and what makes the University of Bergen such an inspiring academic environment,” says Bender, who shares her time between research in anthropology and psychology.
Discovering cognitive skills in Stone Age people Bender´s main research interest focuses on how culture and language affect cognition. She is conducting research on how people perceive the world, think about it, make categori sations and draw conclusions based on their language and cultural back ground.
Recently, Bender was asked by the renowned archaeologist, Professor Christopher Henshilwood, at the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR), to collaborate on his new project on early modern humans in South Africa, who came up with ideas and innovations about 100,000 years ago (see pages 4-5). “For a while now, I have been interested in how culture, language and cognition co-evolved in the human species. So, when Henshilwood asked me if I was interested in collaborating in his project, I thought that was a perfect way of combining all the topics I am interested in,” Bender says.
The researchers also use dis coveries of tools and weapons to reconstruct how the artefacts were put together or maintained, and thereby gain an idea of which cog nitive abilities the early humans minimally had. The main point is that the researchers will combine different approaches to get the answers. “Our key approach is to integrate all kinds of sources of information and all these bits and pieces of e vidence into computer models and simulations of how cognitive evolution may have worked. We will never know with absolute certainty whether we are right, but we can make a valid guess of how it was,” Bender underlines.
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Bones and tools reveal language ability By studying the remains of bones, artefacts and tools Bender and her colleagues will try to find out how people may have reasoned and used logical thinking in the Stone Age, what kind of concepts they could have had, whether they used language and how that would have affected the evolution of humans as a species. “There is of course no way of getting directly at what humans at that time were able to do or not to do, but there are some indications,” explains Bender. The size of the skull makes it possible for neuroscientists to assess cognitive capacities, and pieces of genes from the skeletons provide information on whether people had certain mutations that are necessary for developing language.
Using her anthropological knowledge, Bender will also use information about contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, whose way of living – including hunting, fishing and collecting shells – resembles those of the early modern humans. “It is of course not possible directly to compare contemporary hunter-gatherers with early modern humans, because they are separated from each other by a 100,000 years, as is all of the world’s population today. But some experiences will have been similar, and one can learn from things they know and from how they deal with certain situations and events,“ Bender believes. Combining these comparisons with all the bits and pieces from the sites, all the information will be put into computers models and simula tions of human evolution. “I believe this project will shed a lot of new insights on the evolution of language and cognition from a broader perspective than what has been done before. I think the project on early humans is one of the most interesting projects on how culture and language affect cognition, I have participated in,” says Andrea Bender.
Photo: Kim E. Andreassen
Learning from hunter-gatherers
Andrea Bender • Born in 1968 in Freiburg, Germany. • M.A. Anthropology, Slavistics, & Psychology, University of Freiburg, 1995, PhD Cultural Anthropology, University of Freiburg, 2000; Habilitation, Psychology, University of Freiburg, 2008. • Since 2013, Bender has been working as Associate Professor for General Psychology at the Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen. • In the period 2010-2013 she was chair of the inter national Research Group The cultural constitution of causal cognition: Reintegrating anthropology into the cognitive sciences. Bender has had several positions at the University of Freiburg, as postdoc, researcher and Heisenberg Fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). • Bender has been a member of the Governing board of the Cognitive Science Society since 2011. She is also a member of the Editorial Boards of Topics in Cognitive Science and Frontiers in Psychology: Cognitive Science. • She has published in several acknowledged science journals like PNAS and Science. • Andrea Bender is a Co-PI in professor Christopher Henshilwood´s Centre for Early Human Behaviour (see pages 4-5).
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Photo: iStockphoto
RESEARCH IN FRONT | ana beatriz chiquito
Media language slows down fight against poverty Latin American newspapers use a technical language when describing poverty. According to researcher Ana Beatriz Chiquito, this makes it more difficult to understand the causes and effects of poverty.
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ssociate Professor Ana Beatriz Chiquito at the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Bergen (UiB) is doing research on how poverty is conveyed in Latin American newspapers. She has analysed how poverty was por8
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trayed in the 12 biggest newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, between the years 2000 and 2014. “So far, the study shows that these newspapers use a complex and technical language when they are dealing
with poverty, both in Spanish and Portuguese. They also discuss the phenomenon poverty in an abstract manner, rather than talking about the poor on their own terms,� says Ana Beatriz Chiquito.
The project is called Poverty, anguage, and Media – the Cases of L Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, or PoLaMe for short. (See FACTS for more information). “This tendentious coverage makes it more difficult to understand what poverty really is and how it affects individuals,” says the linguistics researcher.
When people hear “ they are poor and use it as an explanation for many situations, in the end it is perceived as a natural condition.
Importing the language of poverty
Language gives hope Chiquito was motivated to do the language study by a previous project she and colleagues had conducted, Linguistic Identity and Attitudes in Spanish-speaking Latin America (LIAS). In another project (NOMA), Chiquito saw that the young people of Bolivia always presented themselves as poor, and that it was used to explain a long range of situations. “We see some of the same in Norway, but with wealth instead of poverty. “We are so rich in Norway”, we say and use it as an explanation for everything,” says Chiquito. “When people hear they are poor and use it as an explanation for many situations, in the end it is perceived
as a natural condition. This stereotype is sustained by society in general and by the poor themselves. This means it can be harder to get out of the situation and find opportunities to escape poverty,” Chiquito points out. She hopes that the new research project, which ends in 2017, will contribute to a clearer language in Latin American medias, so that the poor get involved in the language on poverty, and so becomes a language that presents opportunities to solve the problems of poverty better than the media language does today. “Few countries in Latin America have had such a big project as the Norwegian “Klart språk i staten”, even if the focus on norms of language are strong in these newspapers,” says Ana Beatriz Chiquito, who is hoping that the project will lead to debates and more comprehensible language to fight poverty in the large and powerful Latin American media.
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Photo: Kim E. Andreassen
The four chosen countries in the study have the largest number of citizens in Latin America, and domi nate the continent’s economy and politics. They also have big media companies with impact on the opinion. Chiquito and her colleagues discovered that the biggest newspapers in the four countries use a language imported from supranational orga nisations, such as the UN, who describe poverty in numbers and parameters. “This import of a specific language and impenetrable expressions is probably caused by the fact that poverty is both a complex and sen sitive subject,” Chiquito believes. “The problem is that when the human aspect is gone, it is also more difficult to understand poverty and to fight its causes.”
Poverty, Language, and Media – the Cases of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico • The research project Language, and Media – the Cases of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico (PoLAMe), funded by Norway Research Foundation (NFR). • The project consists of an interdisciplinary research team. The aim is to study how poverty is presented in the biggest newspapers in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. • The researchers want to find out to what degree the medias sustain existing structures of power, and the naturalization of poverty. • The project is a collaboration between the Department of foreign languages at the University of Bergen, eight universities in Latin America and Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
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RESEARCH IN FRONT | alistair seddon
Mapping the world for climate sensitivity By using information gathered by satellites, a group of biologists have developed a new method for measuring ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability.
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y developing this method, the international team of re searchers has been able to map which areas are most sensitive to climate variability across the world. “Based on the satellite data gathered, we can identify areas that, over the past 14 years, have shown high sensitivity to climate variability,” says researcher Alistair Seddon at the Department of Biology at the University of Bergen (UiB). Seddon is first author of the paper Sensitivity of global terrestrial ecosystems to climate variability, which was recently published in the journal Nature.
A NEW METHOD FOR ECOSYSTEM SENSITIVITY: Global map of the Vegetation Sensitivity Index (VSI), a new indicator of vegetation sensitivity to climate variability using satellite data. Red colour shows higher ecosystem sensitivity, whereas green indicates lower ecosystem sensitivity. Grey areas are barren land or ice covered. Inland water bodies are mapped in blue. Copyright: LEFT
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Globe-spanning results
Creating a sensitivity index
The approach of the researchers has been to identify climate drivers of vegetation productivity on monthly timescales. The researchers have found climate sensitivity in eco systems around the globe. “We have found ecologically sensitive regions with amplified responses to climate variability in the Arctic tundra, parts of the boreal forest belt, the tropical rainforest, alpine regions worldwide, steppe and prairie regions of central Asia and North and South America, forests in South America, and eastern areas of Australia,” says Seddon.
The metric they have developed, the Vegetation Sensitivity Index (VSI), allows a more quantifiable response to climate change challenges and how sensitive different ecosystems are to short-term climate anomalies; e.g. a warmer June than on average, a cold December, a cloudy September, etc. The index supplements previous methods for monitoring and evalu ating the condition of ecosystems. “Our study provides a quantitative methodology for assessing the relative response rate of ecosystems – either natural ones or those with a strong anthropogenic footprint, to climate variability,” Seddon explains.
In the last five years Alistair Seddon has published 14 papers or book chapters in international publications such as Nature, Nature Climate Change, Ecology, Journal of Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Ecological Applications, PLoS ONE, Global Environmental Change, Diatom Research, Journal of Phycology, and The Holocene. Photo: University of Bergen
Using satellite data to get results For their study, the researchers have used satellite data from 2000 to 2013, and Seddon describes their method. “First of all, the method identifies which climate related variables – such as temperature, water availability, and cloudiness – are important for controlling productivity in a given location,” says Seddon. “Then we compare the variability in ecosystem productivity, which we also obtain from satellite data, against the variability in the important climate variables.” VSI provides an additional vege tation metric that can be used to assess the status of ecosystems globally scale. “This kind of information can be really useful for national-scale ecosystem assessments, like Nordic
ature,” Seddon states. “Even more N interesting is that as satellite measurements continue and so as the datasets get longer, we will be able to recalculate our metric over longer time periods to investigate how and if ecosystem sensitivity to climate variability is changing over time.”
Funding and awards The research described in the Nature paper has been partly funded by Statoil, and led by Professor Kathy Willis at UiB’s Department of Biology and Director of Science at Royal Botanic Kew Gardens and Professor of Biodiversity in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford. In autumn 2015, Seddon was awarded a FRIPRO Young Research Talent grant from the Research Council of Norway. Earlier in 2017, The
Based on the satellite “data gathered, we can identify areas that, over the past 14 years, have shown high sensitivity to climate variability.
Meltzer Award for Young Researchers was given to Seddon in recognition of his outstanding academic record in terms of degrees, prizes, research grant, innovative research projects, broad research experience, and international publications.
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RESEARCH IN FRONT | marit skivenes
Innovative child welfare research leads to EU grant Professor Marit Skivenes has been awarded the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant for the research project DISCRETION. She receives the grant to conduct ground-breaking research on discretionary decision-making in child protection systems.
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arit Skivenes is a professor at the Department of Admi nistration and Organization Theory. She is the third University of Bergen (UiB) researcher to receive an ERC Consolidator Grant. The sole evaluation criterion for the grant is scientific excellence of researcher and research proposal. The grant amounts to 2 million Euros for a five years period.
Discretion and child’s best interest The title of the project is “Discretion and the child’s best interests in child protection”. It addresses core themes in social sciences about a govern ment’s use of power towards its citizens, and the justifications of state interventions into peoples lives. “I aim to examine the quality of the discretionary considerations when the child protection system removes children from their parents,” states Skivenes about the project that has given her the ERC grant. 12
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The black box “My ambition is to unlock the black box of discretionary decision-making in child protection cases,” explains Skivenes. “The project will conduct a comparative-empirical study of
interventions “areFew more necessary in some cases, and more damaging if unjustified.
how discretionary decisions are made and justified in the best interests of the child.” There are huge research gaps in this important area of the welfare state, with a great deal of uncertainty concerning how, when and
why discretionary decisions about the child’s best interests are different between decision-makers within and between child protection systems.
The discretion dilemma “The general problem with the exercise of discretion is that equal cases may be treated differently,” Skivenes points out. “Services, help and protection may then depend on the specific official one meets. Resulting in injustices and wrongful decisions – and lack of predictability for the citizens. The dilemma is that discretion is highly necessary but also highly problematic.” She is excited about the prospects the ERC grant gives her for taking her research one step further. “The ERC grant gives me the o pportunity to realize my ideas and thinking about discretionary decision-making in welfare states,” says Skivenes. “I will develop a solid inter-disciplinary research program,
TOPGRANT FOR CHILD-CARE RESEARCH: Through her research, Professor Marit Skivenes has long been an advocate for children's rights and greater transparency in the public sector. She is now rewarded for her work with a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Photo: Paul-Erik Lillholm Rosenholm
These objectives will be reached by systematically examining the role of institutional, organisational and individual factors including regulations of best interest principles; professions involved; type of courts; type of child protection system; demographic factors and individual values; and the population’s view on children and paternalism.
Largest cross-national study and I also aim to create education courses on discretion and pater nalism that I believe will be highly relevant for UiB students.”
Child protection research to the fore A crucial question is how child pro tection decisions may be supported and guided to facilitate good judgments. “Child protection is a particular interesting field for studying dis cretion and justifications, as the intrusive power of the state is at its
most visible when it removes a child from its parents to protect the child's interests. Few interventions are more necessary in some cases, and more damaging if unjustified,” says Skivenes.
Revealing the mechanisms According to Skivenes, the main objectives for her project are to reveal the mechanisms for exercising dis cretion and to improve the understanding of the principle of the child's best interests.
The project will, by conducting the largest cross-national study on decision-making in child protection to date, lift our understanding of international differences in child protection to a new level. “The outcomes of this study are important because societies are at a crossroad when it comes to how children are treated and how their rights are respected. This creates tensions in the traditional relationship between the family and the state,” states Marit Skivenes.
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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION | norway and china
Rector Dag Rune Olsen, dean Asbjørn Strandbakken and dean at Renmin University, Han Dayuan at the official opening of the Norwegian China Law Centre. Photo: Eivind Senneset
Extensive cooperation with China Global challenges facing society and the cooperation between UiB and China were key topics during the China Conference in May.
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istorically, Western research institutions have spent a lot of energy attracting the best heads from Chinese universities. At UiB, we have more faith in develop ing real, long-term partnerships that contribute to strong academic environments – in both China and Norway,” Rector Dag Rune Olsen said in his opening speech during the China Conference. In his speech, the UiB rector was unambiguous about wanting to strengthen the relationship with China in the years to come. 14
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The goal: to bolster cooperation The goal of the conference was to focus on and strengthen the com prehensive cooperation between UiB and China. The university has several education and research environments that have good relations with research and education institutions in China. Moreover, Bergen’s business community is very interested and involved in several of these activities. The desired goal is for the business community and UiB to create even tighter bonds in the future in terms
of these activities, and to exchange experiences, showcase good examples and discuss ambitions for increased cooperation with Chinese institutions and business stakeholders. One key topic was how UiB and institutions in China can build a knowledge base pertaining to global challenges facing society.
Opening of the Norwegian China Law Centre The first part of the programme was devoted to the formal opening of the Norwegian China Law Centre, which
offers law students courses in Chinese law combined with practical workstudy placement in Shanghai or Beijing. The centre will assume a key role in coordinating all activities that the Faculty of Law shares with China. On several occasions during the conference, it was pointed out that the timing for the opening of the centre is perfect, because Norway’s relations with China are now moving towards normalization.
Broader understanding One of the centre’s primary activities involves student exchanges between the Faculty of Law and the counterpart law studies programmes in China. Andreas Slettevold, who has been an exchange student in China, said that it is easy to get an education in Norway and that it is also easy to draw the conclusion that what we learn here represents the only correct knowledge and procedure. When one is given the opportunity to experience that other countries have different perspectives on similar issues, one acquires a much broader under standing of our own legal system and of the differences between countries, Slettevold emphasizes. In addition, he thinks that being able to discover new countries and new cultures and to experience living
in countries so different from our own is the most important outcome from an exchange like this.
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Cooperation in solving global challenges facing society The Faculty of Law is not alone in strongly prioritizing cooperation with China; other academic environments at UiB have also developed good research and study initiatives targeting China. The Bjerknes Centre, for example, has been collaborating with Chinese institutions on climate changes since 2003. During the conference, we encountered, among others, the Department of Biology, which showcased a comparative research project on the ecosystem in the alpine mountain regions of Norway and China. In addition, we met brain researchers in the field of biomedicine who have committed to collaboration with a growing research environment in China, and we listened to a presentation on welfare research in the field of comparative politics.
Cooperation with China • The University of Bergen is cooperation with several leading universities in China. • The cooperations are within both research and student exchange, and are within areas as language, culture, law, climate, politics, medicine and psychology. • There is a great interest in attending student exchange programs to China, and a large number of people are attending exchange in Norway or China every year. • UiB has its own Norwegian China Law Centre placed at the Faculty of Law.
Excellent relations What all the projects share in common is a body of students and researchers who have excellent relations with China in several areas. The purpose of academic collaboration with C hina
is scientific and cultural reciprocity, and all the researchers and students who a ddressed the assembly on 4 May cited the good relations they had with their counterparts in China – including during the years when the political climate between the two nations was rather chilly. “Politically speaking, this confe rence couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Øyvind Halleraker, the Norwegian Parliament’s First Vice Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. “After six years of frosty political relations with China, the relationship between our two countries is finally beginning to thaw,” he continued, emphasizing how important China is for Norway in terms of trade, education and research and referring to the growing number of Chinese visitors who come to Norway to pursue a wide range of research and educational objectives.
The Summer Palace in Beijing. Photo: Ingrid E. Tøsdal the Uib Magazine.
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art | hildur bjarnadóttir
”I can hear the ocean when the wind is blowing from the south” Artist Hildur Bjarnadóttir tells stories of colors and belonging in her recent doctoral work at the University of Bergen. She works from a plot of land in Southern Iceland, using plants to make art in unexpected ways.
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t was three years ago the Icelandic artist acquired the plot Þúfugarðar in the South of Iceland. Hildur Bjarnadóttir had no previous connections to the place, but bought it both as a place to live and a place to make art. “I have for the past three years, been forming roots and planning a future on this land. It is situated in the middle of farmland, flat, with a far extending view to the surrounding mountains and towards the ocean. It has diverse rich flora, which is typical for that part of the country, such as meadowsweet, northern bedstraw and stone bramble”, Hildur Bjarnadóttir says.
Weaving stories from the soil The project Bjarnadóttir planned, and that has since evolved out of the land, is called 'Textiles in the Extended Field of Painting', adding two subtitles; 'reconstructing the painter’s canvas both conceptually and literally through weaving', and secondly; 'using plants as a source of pigment in connection to a place or a person'. Bjarnadóttir recently defended her work at a viva voce at the Faculty for Fine Art, Music and Design at University of Bergen. 16
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Key elements in the project are woven paintings and plant dyed silk. The paintings are made from plant dyed wool and linen thread covered with acrylic paint. Hildur Bjarnadóttir mixes two types of color systems, one industrially made and the other a natural system. “My aim is to sharpen the charac teristics of each color and create a dialogue between two different substances. In my work I use the color as a material, I am more concerned with where color comes from than what it looks like.” While the acrylic paint is easily obtainable and can be bought almost anywhere, extracting plant dye is quite another task. Bjarnadóttir first had to get to know all the plants at the plot.
While dying wool threads with plant dye, she also painted woolthreads with acrylic paint, one by one. In her critical reflection Hildur Bjarnadóttir explains the contem plative element in her artistic research, “The first summer I felt like I had tuned in to a frequency that was exposed to me through spending this time with the plants on the land, Some of the titles in my work like Secret moment and I can hear the ocean when the wind is blowing from the south, refers to these sort of experiences on the land, discoveries that are only available to the person who slows down and tunes into the frequency of a place.”
Contemplation as art
Hildur Bjarnadóttir explains that much plant dye is a yellow color, and will fade over time. “Using only plant dye is idyllic and unrealistic. Synthetic materials, such as plastics, have become a part of nature, it is a fact that we have to deal with. Using both types of color, natural and acrylic sharpens the contrast between them and highlights this relationship.”
“In Þúfugarðar there are at least 90 different plant species. When I examined what plants were on the land, there were no surprises and no disappointments, all plants are quite common in the area. So I had to choose between which plants to pick, my choices guided by subjective, compositional, practical and aesthetical reasons.”
The very different history of acrylic paint
ON THE GROUND: Hildur Bjarnadóttir picking plants on her plot in Southern Iceland. Copyright: Hildur Bjarnadóttir
The acrylic paint has no connec tion to a place like the plant color, but refers instead to a long history of painting. This is the inherent content and context of the acrylic paint I am using.
The exibition: Colors of Belonging In the Norwegian Research Pro gramme the focus is on how artistic theories are developed and tested through the artwork itself, where for instance an exhibition or a concert is the main topic of the evaluation. Bjarnadóttir presented her work in an exhibition, Colors of Belonging, at Bergen Kjøtt in 2015. She suggests that at first glance, the works in the exhibition may appear to be abstract and formalistic. “When the viewer understands the source of the color the perception changes, and it becomes figurative.
The pieces carry the content of the plant and the context of the land in them a very physical representation. The works in this exhibition also exp lore the desire to find one’s place in the world, and takes this piece of land as its point of departure. The land functions as a platform to contemplate issues of belonging and ecological disruption.”
The experience of the plant Bjarnadóttir says the plants on the land act as recording devices of the place they grow in and the ecological and social system they belong to, taking in information through the soil and the air, as well as their roots, petals, flowers and leaves. Many things affect the state of the plants. “Was the plant picked in the spring or in the fall? How has it been affected by humans or animals? Has
there been an eruption affecting the atmosphere and the ground? Is there a polluting industry in the area or even further away? How are indu stries in the world affecting the weather which then again affects the plants on this land. This information is passed on in the colors I extract from the plants and which I have used to make the works.” How about your silk works, can you explain what they amplify with regards to the different types of information from the plants? “The silk pieces offer a different experience of the plant dye than the woven paintings. Due to the scale of them the viewer is surrounded by the plants, walking into a usually hidden universe of the earth. The plant-dyed silk is an atmosphere where the color can be experienced quite physically through the body of the Uib Magazine.
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art | hildur bjarnadóttir
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'Textiles in the Extended Field of Painting' • The project 'Textiles in the Extended Field of Painting' was conducted in the Department of Fine Arts of the Bergen Academy of Art and Design during the years 2012 - 2015. The project was supervised by Hilde Hauan, professor of textiles at Faculty of Arts, Music and Design, University of Bergen, and Anne Katrine Dolven, artist based in London. • Hildur Bjarnadóttir is an Icelandic artist who shares her time between Reykjavík and Þúfugarðar in the south of Iceland. She holds a BA degree from the Textile Department of the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts and an MFA from the New Forms Department at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. • Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions at venues such as: The Reykjavík Art Museum (IS), The Iceland National Gallery (IS), Stenersen Museum, Oslo (NO), Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (NO), The Mint Museum, Charlotte NC, (USA), The Museum of Art & Design, NY (USA), The Bronx Museum, NY (USA) and the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID
the viewer. The viewer can walk around the piece experiencing the plant dye in three dimension. I use the silk as an armature, a grid or a net, that catches and holds the content and essence of the plant, making it visible.”
In the footsteps of her grandmother Plantcolors, being in little use, what was your main idea about bringing them into your artwork? I started to become interested in plant color for my work around the year 2000. My grandmother had attended and cultivated a plot of land in Iceland for 70 years and I started working with the plants she had planted there as a connection to her. It was through her plot of land that I realized that the plants were, 18
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through time, recording her presence and existence. I then became interested in the concept of belonging in connection to a place and how that materializes in the plant color. So in your work the question of belonging is personal? “My interest in the concept of belonging comes from contemplating my own rootedness in my grand mothers land and then later in the plot of land, Þúfugarðar, I acquired and was working with in my research project. A sense of belonging can be a complicated issue and does not only involve being tied to a certain place as it does in my work. I am interested in this feeling of rootedness, how that is formed and what it contains.”
Tartan-tradition In your critical reflection you place your work in relation to other artists and traditions. For instance you say that your artwork is also in dialogue with the Scottish tartan tradition. Is it the patterns of the weavings or the technique that make up for the link to tartans? Or is the link mainly connected to the use of organic color? “My woven paintings function much like the old tartans, being hand woven and hand dyed both with l ocal plants and acrylic paint. Even old tartan fabric used local plants and imported dye. In a sense the woven paintings are simultaneously a district and a clan pattern, connected both to a place and identity. Just as the tartans draw up a certain portrait or image of the place and the people who live there, the woven paintings can be seen as a portrait of the land and myself.” There is so much to extract from your work, even more so when you explain your ideas and the way you
work. Do you think people need to know about the context to grasp the full richness of your work? “My work can be experienced through many different channels, I do not expect everyone to access it in the same way or to grasp every thing at once. Time is both a material and concept in my work and it takes time to experience it. The more time the viewer spends with the work the more information the work will reveal. Writing a critical reflection or giving a lecture about my work or publishing a book gives an oppor tunity for a different reflection which can go beyond the work itself.”
Writing your way into the core In your critical reflection you write: ”I claim that my research is embedded in the artwork, but there is no denying that the written text that accompanies my work does open doors into its core, which would otherwise have remained closed both to me and others.” “The writing has forced me to explore my ideas on a different l evel, acquiring clarity through the nature of written language. I would say that writing about the work has contri buted to a deeper understanding of the work’s meaning, function and existence; it has affected the way I understand and talk about my work and will have an affect on its progress. I envisioned this text to be more useful to others than myself, I think this has turned around. I almost want to say the text is, in the end, written for myself.”
The plastic whale
A stranded whale found near Bergen became an overnight international sensation after scientists at the University of Bergen made a horrifying discovery about the contents of the whale's belly.
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MARINE POLLUTION | the plastic whale
The whale that stranded near Bergen in January. Photo: Terje Lislevand, Universitetsmuseet i Bergen
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n January a whale was observed in the shallow waters off the island of Sotra, not far from Bergen. It made repeated attempts to reach land and became stuck in the shallow water. The Fire Service spent several hours trying to help the whale return to deeper waters, but each time the whale kept returning to the beach. Its behaviour indicated that something was wrong. The third time that the whale returned to the beach the Norwegian Wildlife Board concluded that everything indicated that it was too sick to survive and they decided to euthanise it. Zoologist Terje Lislevand and his colleagues at the University of Bergen had been following developments and they set off for the island of Sotra in order to study this guest which had been displaying unusual behaviour. After conducting several examinations the scientists were able to ascertain that the whale was a goose-beaked 20
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The Plastic Whale • In January, a rare goose-beaked whale stranded near Bergen. • 30 plastic bags and several plastic flakes were found in the whale’s stomach. • The discovery gained enormous interest from the media and the public, putting the issue of marine pollution on the agenda. • The content of the whale’s stomach, and parts of its skeleton, can be seen at an exhibition at the University Museum of Bergen. • Follow #plasthvalen on Facebook.
whale, a rare species of whale which has never previously been documented in Norway.
Shocking sight However, the real surprise for the scientists came when they opened the belly of the 2-ton whale. Mr. Lislevand describes the sight which met them as "shocking". "Its stomach was stuffed full of plastic – In total 30 plastic bags and several plastic flakes, along with some small p ieces of plastic. It was such a sad sight," says zoo logist Terje Lislevand from the University of Bergen. The only traces of food in its stomach were octopus beaks, i.e. the hard mouth parts of an octopus which are not easily broken down inside the stomach. Squid are a natural part of a whale's diet. "It probably mistook the plastic flakes for squid and thought that they were food.
Everything indicates that this rare whale suffered before it ended its days in this Norwegian archipelago.” “I would be reluctant to hazard a guess as to how long this animal had gone without food. In this case the plastic particles had accumulated, causing a blockage in its system. There is no doubt that it suffered," says Mr. Lislevand.
Hit a nerve The whale's tragic fate obviously hit a nerve. It attracted massive attention from the media, both nationally and internationally, and this was followed by a surge of public interest in cleaning up beaches and bays along the coast of Norway. Private individuals, organisations and companies collected plastic and expressed a desire to ensure that this whale had not suffered and died in vain. The problems associated with plastic in the ocean were placed on the agenda in Norway, as well as in other countries. Even though this is definitely not the first time that a whale has been found with plastic in
its belly, those scientists who are involved in such work on a daily basis experienced an increase in awareness about their research and their specialist field. Plastic waste is currently one of the greatest environmental problems associated with the sea. Speaking to Norwegian newspaper VG, Researcher Christoph Noever at the Department of Biology at the University of Bergen has said: "Finding so much plastic in a rare whale is shocking and a sad example of the impact of humans on the ocean." Marine pollution is an escalating problem and according to the UN's Environmental Programme, over eight million tons of plastic waste end up in the world's oceans each year. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to find plastic in the bellies of whales, tortoises, fish and sea birds.
open during the summer of 2017 at the University Museum which will be based on the story of this whale. "For the first time we will display the plastic found in the whale's belly, along with a couple of preserved vertebrae. The aim of the exhibition is to make people aware that litter, especially plastic litter, is a huge environmental problem," says Siri Skretting Jansen, a Project Manager at the University Museum in Bergen. Visitors to the exhibition will learn more about the biology of the goose-beaked whale, see the actual plastic and learn more about environmental problems in the ocean. In the long-term the Museum intends to include the actual goose-beaked whale and its story in its comprehensive collection of whale skeletons and it will be exhibited in the Museum's iconic Whale Hall.
Plastic whale to be exhibited
A wake-up call
The University of Bergen has experienced an enormous amount of interest in the actual whale and the plastic found in its stomach. Consequently an exhibition will
The story of the plastic whale has already mushroomed in the form of massive public involvement. At the University of Bergen the fate of the goose-beaked whale has also had consequences. Now that the media and public have been made aware of the situation they are displaying greater interest in existing research and several researchers are also wanting to use analyses of the whale and the plastic in their future work. "It will be used primarily in the promotional work of the Museum, both in respect of the whale's biology and marine plastic pollution," says Mr. Lislevand. "Plastic waste in the sea is a well-known global problem. For a long time people have had a tendency to look on the sea as a potential rubbish tip. The only positive thing about this tragic story is the fact that this whale has served as an important wake-up call."
45 large plastic flakes were found in the whale's stomach. Photo: University of Bergen
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world wide uiB | global outreach
World Wide UiB
The University of Bergen (UiB) is a member of several international networks and organisations.
According to the Highly Cited Researchers 2016 ranking, University of Bergen (UiB) scientists Christopher Henshilwood and Kenneth Dickstein are among the world’s most influential researchers
UiB has approved a new strategy for digitalisation. Being a part of the media cluster Media City Bergen is one of the pillars in the university’s digitalisation project.
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In the annual QS university rankings, the University of Bergen is successful in several categories, and in particular within the category Earth & Marine Sciences. In this category the University of Bergen is now ranked number 37 in the world.
Are you a former student from the University of Bergen? If so, you are one of our alumni and part of the UiB community.
In October 2016, the Aurora network was launched in Amsterdam by nine European universitites, after an initiative by the VU University Amsterdam. The University of Bergen (UiB) is proud to be one of the founding members of this exciting new network, which aims to work for diversity in academia, improving teaching and enhancing the student experience, as well as helping to solve global challenges through research.
The Norwegian China Law Centre will assume a key role in coordinating all activities that the Faculty of Law at The University of Bergen shares with China.
Bergen
In recent years the Bergen Pacific Studies Research Group has attained global prominence in Pacific Studies through its broad international relationships.
Centre for International Health has played a vital role to Zambia’s first School of Public Health, through a long-term academic partnership with the University of Zambia.
Launched in November 2016, the University of Bergen (UiB) Alumni Network in Uganda provides a platform to Ugandans who have studied at the University of Bergen.
If you become a member of UiB Alumni, you can stay in touch with your alma mater and join in discussions with other members of our alumni community. As we build our global alumni network there may be an alumni meeting where you live. Interested in joining? Register at uib.no/alumni!
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the uib interview | michael fellows
Mathematically, a good algorithm “ is one that uses less resources, runs faster, or uses less memory.
Algorithms, Love and Adventure The UiB Magazine interview: Michael Fellows
Professor Michael Fellows loves mathematics, algorithms and computer science. The love resulted in not only ground-breaking research, but passion plays and true love.
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peeding up a process by even a small amount can make a big difference to a company,” says Professor Michael Fellows at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen (UiB). He is appointed to the University of Bergen through the elite “Toppforsk” pro gramme, funded by the Norwegian government and the Bergen Research Foundation (Bergens Forskningsstiftelse).
Founder and leader Professor Mike Fellows is recognized as a founder and leader of the relatively new area of computer science known as “parameterized
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complexity.” This area investigates the intrinsic difficulty of how a pro blem can be modelled and algo rithmically implemented, either in theory or in practice. “An algorithm is a recipe. An algo rithm for baking a pie would take a cup of flour, do such and so. A good algorithm would make a good pie. Mathematically, a good algorithm is one that uses less resources, runs faster, or uses less memory,” the professor explains. Parameterized complexity identifies features of a problem (parameters) that can be exploited to create faster, better algorithms. For instance, the well-known treewidth parameter
measures how much a graph re sembles a tree. The data of real-life problems such as natural selection, or chemical and physical processes are often very large and complex, some structure is almost always present. “For example, a basic problem in bioinformatics is aligning DNA sequences, and one of the problems is finding an optimal alignment. The size of the input is huge. According to Wikipedia, if you stretched the DNA in one cell all the way out, it would be about 2m long and all the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System. Through para
AT THE FRONTIERS OF ALGORITHMS: ÂProfessor Michael Fellows is considered a pioneer in algorithmic research. He is also lauded for being able to teach children sophisticated science, making science fun and exciting. Photo: Eivind Senneset
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the uib interview | michael fellows
meterized algorithms we can capture various aspects of the problem: the number of sequences to be aligned, scheduling of when the analysis is through, the machines one needs, etc. and influence how fast the problem can be solved. We use the parameters to capture the structure of typical instances. It is a theory that works together with practice,” Fellows explains.
Bergen – a powerhouse of algorithmic science Almost every modern aspect of industry, commerce, government or innovation needs efficient algorithms, whether for scheduling oil production, determining mobile-phone coverage, or coordinating health databases. Algorithms are inherent in all other areas of computer science: artificial intelligence, computational biology, computer architecture, graphics, robotics, security, networking, etc. The parameterized complexity branch of computer science is growing, with groups of scientists working together in Australia, China, India, UK, USA, world-wide exploring it further. Fellows joined UiB in January 2016, moving from Charles Darwin University, Australia. He chose UiB for a reason. “Europe is leading the way in parameterized, multivariate algo rithms, with Bergen as the strongest centre. In this area of research, the UiB Algorithms Group is the strongest research group in the world. The theory has developed mathematically, now is the time to put theory into practice,” Fellows says.
Grass-roots computer science Fellows is also co-author of Computer Science Unplugged. The primary goal of the Unplugged project is to promote Computer Science and computing in general to young people as an inte
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Michael Fellows • Fellows has published five books, and over 150 scientific articles. He has been cited more than 12,000 times. • Born in 1952, California, USA. • Married to Frances A. Rosamond. • PhD in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego, USA. • Professor of Computer Science at the Department of Informatics, University of Bergen (UiB). • Appointed to UiB through the elite “Toppforsk” programme, funded by the Norwegian government and the Bergen Research Foundation (BFS). • Has three nationalities: American, Australian and Canadian. • Considered founder of at least three new areas of theoretical computer science including the theory of Graph Covers, Partition Theory, and Multivariate Complexity Analysis and Algorithm Design. • Has taught in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
resting, engaging, and intellectually stimulating discipline. The book has won several science popularization awards, and been translated into 19 languages including Norwegian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, and German, with more translations underway. “It is used all over the world and has become a grass-roots movement. It is very gratifying, because when we wrote the book in the mid-1990s, it was rejected by every major publisher in the world. The rejections were all quite lovely, basically saying
that they loved the book, but that it didn’t have any connection to the math curriculum. The math behind computers is a modern kind of math that is not reflected in the curriculum. But times have changed,” says Fellows. Schools are becoming interested in teaching real computer science, not just web pages or programming. Google is a major player in spon soring activities based on the Unplugged activities. In their travels around the world, Fellows and his wife Frances Rosamond, also a scientist, meet, inspire and are inspired by their fellow researchers. They always take some time out to engage children with Computer Science Unplugged activities.
Mathematics on stage Fellows has also tried his hand at comm unicating mathematics through theatre. Mathematics is feared by most people. His four cowboy melodramas, almost vaudeville, address issues in the politics of curiosity and are expected to be provocative. Each play dramatizes deep mathematics that has been part of Fellows’ professional research—he puts a theorem on stage. He has written, “What is mathe matical science all about? I believe it is about the unfolding of our collective cognitive abilities, as part of our natural instinct to develop rich and expressive, as well as useful language. Mathematical science is therefore destined for the theatre, as it is powerfully and inherently metaphorical.” His expression of the love of math resulted in true love. Fellows met his wife Frances A. Rosamond when she attended his plays at the fringe theatre in Victoria, Canada. She is a computer scientist, who
Explaining your “ science to a ten-year-old gives you a fresh picture of what you are actually working on.
Michael Fellows and his wife, computer scientist Frances Rosamond. Photo: Eivind Senneset
also now works at UiB. The couple share a passion for science and math (especially multivariate algorithms), and communicating to a broader audience, including children.
Explaining science to a ten-year-old “Teaching children is important in the grand scheme of things. They have a natural curiosity, and it is a two-way street. If you want to talk to someone with a background in biology about computer science, you need a “ten-years old’s” version of the science, and they need to explain biology to me like I am ten years old. It is the universal meeting point for interdisciplinary communica tions. Explaining your science to a ten-year-old gives you a fresh picture of what you are actually working on,” Fellows says. The book and his communication of science has won Fellows several
awards, one example being the International Gold Medal of Honour for Computer Science and Computer Science Education, given by the ETH University of Zurich. Fellows is also Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2014, making him one of 230 to receive the honour since 1870. Other fellows of the society include scientists such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Marie Curie, and Charles Darwin. “I am the first computer scientist to receive the award,” Fellows says proudly. He is also one of ten inaugural fellows of the European Asso ciation for Theoretical Computer Science.
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Awards and achievments • Fellows is one of ten inaugural fellows of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. • Awarded the International Gold Medal of Honour for Computer Science and Computer Science Education by ETH University of Zurich. • Awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. • One of the first Fellows of the Institute of Advanced Study (Durham), UK and a Fellow of Grey College at the University of Durham. • Awarded an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellowship for five years, beginning 2010.
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researchers to watch | malgorzata a. cyndecka
Sorting out European rules for state support Law researcher Małgorzata A. Cyndecka has clarified the EU’s rules for government subsidy in a new book. Her work will be of great use for politicians and bureaucrats in their day-to-day work.
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tate aid to companies that twist or alter the rules of competition and influence trade in the EU, is basically illegal. However, no rules are without exceptions. States, counties or municipalities can invest in companies without falling into the category of state aid. “Public bodies can invest in companies, but only if they act in the same way as a rational and profitoriented investor would have done in similar circumstances in the m arket,” explains Małgorzata A. Cyndecka from the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen (UiB).
The state can grant aid to itself For example, as part-owner of the airline company SAS, Norway can give the company a guarantee for a loan in cases where a private actor would have regarded this act as rational. In such cases the investment is considered to be in line with the Market Economy Investor Principle (MEIP). To see if any investment is adjusted to the MEIP, one can use the Market Economy Investor Test in EU State Aid Law, which has been 28
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regarded as a legal instrument for establishing the presence of aid since 1986. “Despite this framework, there are quite a few public bodies that misunderstand or misuse the investor test,” Cyndecka points out.
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Małgorzata A. Cyndecka • Born in 1981 in Poznań, Poland. • Finished two master degrees at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Toruń, in 2005 and 2007 respectively. • Erasmus student at the Faculty of Law, UiB, from 2006 to 2007. • Worked at the Directorate General for Competition at the EU Commission in Brussels, and worked as juridical advisor at the law firm Advokatfirmaet Schjødt DA in Bergen. • Became a PhD candidate at UiB in 2009. Presented her thesis on 23 January 2015. • The thesis was recently published as the book The Market Economy Investor Test in EU State Aid Law: Applicability and Application. • Since 2015, Malgorzata has been a postdoctoral fellow at UiB’s Faculty of Law, where her research focuses on state support in the banking sector. The postdoctoral position is supported by Norway’s Finance Market Fund (Finansmarkedsfondet). • From 2016, she also works for an external work group set up by the Norwegian government, where she will clear up and evaluate the situation between public and private business.
LEGAL RESEARCH: Postdoctoral fellow Małgorzata A. Cyndecka has recently published a book on state aid to private and public companies, based on her doctoral thesis. PHOTO: KIM E. ANDREASSEN
Clarifying misinterpretation
Accepting the test
To clarify the use of the investor test and to avoid juridical pitfalls, Cyndecka has recently published the book “The Market Economy Investor Test in EU State Aid Law: Applicability and Application”, based on her PhD thesis. “The book analyses the use of MEIP for sorting out uncertainties and misinterpretations. Such a clarification is needed, due to the huge negative effects that may arise if the test is misused, in terms of waste of public money“, Cyndecka warns. “In addition, there is an ongoing process in the EU about opening up the market for even more competition, which will lead to more uncertainty between the private and the public sector,” says Cyndecka.
The EU investor test is by many regarded as difficult and controversial. Its legitimacy and reliability has repeatedly been questioned. Cyndecka’s analyses are, on the contrary, positive to the test. She concludes that the test implies a real economic assessment of the state acting as a market operator. By using the test, one avoids discretionary judgment with political undertones. “The private investor test contributes, to a large degree, that the state support achieves its purpose, and presents equal conditions for all market actors,” states Małgorzata A. Cyndecka.
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researchers to watch | yvette peters
Fighting for democracy Thomas Piketty's bestseller about capitalism made it clear to Yvette Peters what her next research project would focus on: political inequality.
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ast year, Postdoctoral Fellow Yvette Peters was awarded a recruitment grant from the Bergen Research Foundation (BFS). The grant was awarded based on her innovative research into questions regarding democracy and political equality. A subject she believes is more urgent than ever in the current global political climate.
A critical look at democratic representation She points to the bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century by French economist Thomas Piketty as an inspiration for her BFS sup ported project, which is called The Politics of Inequality. How Representative Democracy (Mal-)Functions in Europe. “I have long been concerned with the increasing political inequality and lack of adequate representation in both local and national elections,” says Yvette Peters, who works at the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen (UiB). The two main pillars of Peters’ 30
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BFS-supported project are increasing political inequality and the lack of adequate representation in demo cratic institutions. “One of the features noticed throughout Europe is a decrease in citizen participation and a decrease in trust in political institutions. At the same time, an increase in antiimmigrant and anti-European sentiment has taken place,” she says with a note of worry in her voice.
Pushing democracy forwards What worries the Dutch-born Peters most about the erosion in trust is what underlies this lack of voter participation. Her project aims to look both at the causes of this development by examining repre sentation and political inequality and also, more optimistically, to look at measures to counter this. “I am concerned with issues that have social relevance and I love to solve puzzles. I believe this is a matter of wanting to understand the world better. This is why I became a political scientist and this is how the
BFS-supported project grew from an idea to an actual research project,” explains Peters, who describes her work as comparative politics and says that her project is both researchdriven and informed by societal impact. Her project primarily focuses on national politics in Europe, but also looks at lower levels of government. According to Peters, Norway has a lively local democracy, with many stakeholders involved. She believes, however, that Norway, as well as the rest of Europe, would benefit from a look at its democratically elected institutions and how to improve political representation. One main feature that is key to her research is the Norwegian Citizen Panel, another project that has been supported by BFS, and which is headed by Professor Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, one of Peters’ main research partners in Bergen. “The Citizen Panel is a crucial part of my research. It is an amazing infrastructure, which is incredibly useful for the research I plan to
POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Political scientist Yvette Peters’ research concerns democratic representation and strengthening political inequality. Here she is in the Bergen City Hall. Photo: Eivind Senneset
do and also helpful as part of the international part of my project,” says Peters, whose project not only encompasses the collaboration of Norwegian researchers, politicians and citizens but also a vast inter national network.
Transatlantic scope Over a short and shifting career – she originally trained to become an aerospace engineer – Peters has built an international network across disciplines and across borders. In tune with this, she aims to officially launch her project at Harvard in autumn 2017. “There are considerable similari ties, but also differences, between American and European politics. I believe in trying to bridge those differences and learn from each other about developments from different sides of the Atlantic,” she says adding:
“I am also of the view that American political science has a lot to teach us in Europe, and by bringing in partners from across the Atlantic, my project aims to bring a new d imension to European political science.” On 25 April, Yvette Peters was one of three young UiB-researchers to give a lecture at the annual Christie Conference in Bergen, a meeting place for academics, industry, poli ticians, and other decision-makers and agenda-setters in Western Norway.
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Yvette Peters • Born 1981 in Alphen aan den Rijn in the Netherlands. • Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen (UiB) since May 2013. • Held a position as assistant professor (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin) at the Humboldt University in Berlin between September 2010 and May 2013. • Graduated with a PhD in political science from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. • Currently coordinator of the research group Citizens, Opinions and Representation, together with Professor Elisabeth Ivarsflaten. • Recently (co-)edited the book Democratic Transformations in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities (Routledge, 2016), with Professor Michaël Tatham. • In December 2016, she was awarded a recruitment grant from the Bergen Research Foundation (BFS). • Her BFS project officially launches in June 2017.
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researchers to watch | simona chera
Studying gene disorders to cure diabetes The young developmental biologist Simona Chera has received grants for a total of 17 million NOK (1.8 million Euros) for her cutting-edge research in the field of diabetes.
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ver the past 12 months, Asso ciate Professor Simona Chera at the Department of Clinical Science at the University of Bergen (UiB) has received three prestigious grants for her research into diabetes. This underlines her position as one of the leading young diabetes researchers in Europe. “It was extremely important for me to get these grants. The first step on the way to be independent is to get your own line of research, and as a researcher independency is essential. But to get there, you have to acquire a substantial amount of funding,” says Chera.
Multiple grant recipient In 2015, Chera was announced as one of the new Young Associate Investi gators of the Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM), she was awarded with a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Excellence Project and she twice received the Research Council of Norway's funding for independent Young Research Talents. Chera is part of a group of stem 32
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cell research at the KG Jebsen Centre for Diabetes Research. The centre is a collaboration on diabetes research between UiB, Haukeland University Hospital and collaborators from the United States and the United Kingdom, led by Professor Pål R. Njølstad, who currently holds an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for his excellent research.
Research on inherited diabetes The research group has been working on identifying mutations in genes that can cause an inherited form of diabetes. Maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY) is a diabetes form, which affects young people. In Bergen, samples from more than 150 MODY families are stored to be used in diabetes gene research. What made you choose to work at the KG Jebsen Centre in Bergen? “The large MODY registry of data and blood samples is quite unique. I was interested in coming to Bergen in the first place, so it was very fortu nate to have the opportunity to work here. In most of Europe it is quite
difficult to work on patient samples, because the legislation is very strict,” says Chera. Coming to Norway, the young diabetes researcher was interested to see if any of the mechanisms she had discovered in mice also could be applied in humans. “In order to get this research done, I need access to human samples, and stem cell research is more accessible in Norway than in the rest of Europe,” Chera explains.
Born into academia Simona Chera was born in Bucharest, Romania, where she also started her studies. “Both my parents are researchers, and I found it really inspiring. For me, becoming a researcher was an easy track to follow, though my parents are physicists, not biologists,” says Chera. Immediately after finishing her degree at the Faculty of Biology in Bucharest, Chera moved to Geneva, Switzerland and started her PhD in regeneration, which early became her main interest. Regeneration
THE FORTUITOUS DIABETES SCIENTIST: Simona Chera knew early on that she wanted to be a researcher, but her way into diabetes research started by serendipity. Photo: Elin Espe Stensvand
means that an organism regrows a lost part, so that the original function is restored. In her PhD project, Chera worked on Hydra, which is a freshwater polyp with the ability to regenerate its entire body; the most classical model of regeneration. “After finishing my PhD I got an opportunity to work with mice, which is kind of a holy grail for people working in the regeneration field. Usually we work with quite unsophi sticated origins, because they re generate better. I moved from the Faculty of Science to the Faculty of Medicine, to work with pancreas regeneration,” Chera explains.
A disease onset in maturity One of Chera’s main discoveries in Geneva was an age-related switch in the regenerative potential in the pancreas, which resulted in several publications. “There is a natural correlation
between this work and MODY. MODY patients are born with the gene mutation that causes the disease, but the disease symptoms are not evident until later in life, meaning it is onset in maturity,” says Chera. She is now studying beta cells, which is a type of cell that is found in the pancreas. The cell’s primary function is to release insulin in response to spikes in blood glucose concentrations. In conditions like MODY, a progressive beta cell decay is expected. “The problem with diabetes is that it is an extremely expensive disease to control, and it is compulsory to find a way to postpone the onset of the disease, or to diminish the impact of diabetes on health span. If we are able to regenerate beta cells, this could remove some of the restraints from the economy of the disease and improve the quality of life for diabetic patients,” Chera explains.
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Simona Chera • Age: 36. • Born in Bucharest, Romania. • PhD in developmental biology from Geneva, 2008. • Since July 2015: Associate Professor; Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Norway. • Since October 2015: NCMM Young Associate Investigator; Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen, Norway. • In 2015, Chera was announced as one of the new Young Associate Investigators of the Centre for Molecular Medicine Norway (NCMM). • The same year she was awarded with a grant from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Excellence Project. • She also received the Research Council of Norway´s funding for independent Young Research Talents twice.
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education | anne berit guttormsen
Anne Berit Guttormsen is a popular teacher amongst the students of medicine. “I think it’s because I care and give both positive and negative feedback”, she says. Photo: Eivind Senneset
Excellence in teaching This year, the Olav Thon Foundation’s prize for excellence in teaching is awarded to Anne Berit Guttormsen from the University of Bergen.
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nne Berit Guttormsen, professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, has received the Olav Thon Foundation’s national prize for excellence in teaching for 2017, She and three other candidates will each receive a prize in the amount of NOK 500,000. Guttormsen has won prizes for her teaching before. Last year, we interviewed her about her thoughts on the field of emergency medical treatment and about her close relationship with her students. She told us that although it is important that students learn the subject matter well, she is also committed to seeing to it that they have enough breaks from the curriculum and that they feel a sense of well-being outside the learning environment. Her 34
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students describe her as a teacher who takes good care of her students. “Anne Berit is an incredibly dedicated person. She really cares about her students and always shows that she is on our side, and makes us feel that we are part of the university”, says student Julie Aurora Steinsdatter Stenehjem.
Anne Berit’s students follow her Anne Berit Guttormsen is head physician of the intensive care unit at Haukeland University Hospital as well as adjunct professor at the University of Bergen. After many years of teaching emergency medical care, she has followed up medical students from the very beginning to the end of their medical studies. She stays in contact with
many of them afterwards, including when she conducts the course in disaster medical assistance. “I wouldn’t have been able to teach this course without these former students”, she says. Several of them are now doctors affiliated with the university, earning speciali zations through internships at the hospital, or are associated with the MOFA skills centre. “It is good to see the students again and to keep in touch. I value that a lot”, Guttormsen says, and she praises all the enthusiastic students attending the gymnasium training session. She has already been on an e arly shopping spree to buy carrots, chocolate, crisp-
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Guttormsen’s five best teaching techniques: • Irrespective of whether the material is within my main field, I place a lot of emphasis on learning the material well. The people who know their subject matter best are the ones who make the best teachers. • It is important to create a good atmosphere. As far as I am concerned, it is a matter of both providing good patient-centred learning and preparing and making the students comfortable when they enter the intensive care unit. They are given coffee and juice and made to feel welcome. • Being a good teacher is also about seeing both the good and the bad in students. It is important to give constructive criticism. • It is important to me to care about my students outside the teaching environment, too. It’s about the whole person. • Being visibly present in the environment is something that I think people appreciate. Through my many different roles, I meet students in various settings.
breads, biscuits and bottles of mineral water, all attractively arranged on a stretcher in the centre of the room. “I know just how important it is to have refreshments on hand”, she says.
Dedication and genuine interest In the hall in the Central Block of Haukeland University Hospital, students have a chance to try their hand at various stations: clearing airways, initial assessment and aid devices. Guttormsen herself supervises an airway treatment station. “Very good, you did it!” she said approvingly to a participant who succeeded in opening the airway on a training dummy. Guttormsen is often mentioned as a teacher who is revered by both students and other teachers. “I think it is because I am energetic and I care a lot about people”, Guttormsen says. She believes that people who know their subject matter best are the ones who make the best teachers. “Students can quickly detect whether
GOOD RAPPORT: Anne Berit Guttormsen makes time for her students. This is evidenced by her students’ motivation. She is shown here in dialogue with medical student Linda Olson during a group exercise in emergency medical treatment. Photo: Eivind Senneset
you know your material or have merely memorized it to be able to teach it”, she thinks.
Sees the good and the bad in students In addition, she is concerned with really seeing students. “I’m perhaps considered strict. I give both positive and negative feedback”, she says. However, Guttormsen is also concerned with the whole person, not just their role as students. “It is important to be curious about the well-being of the students outside the teaching context too, because I know that it means something in terms of how they feel when they are here with us”, she explains. Guttormsen is particularly committed to showing the students everyday activities in the intensive care unit, and she brings them here. “I am very committed to patient-centred teaching and I am dedicated to students getting as much direct patient-oriented experience as possible”, Guttormsen states.
Enthusiastic dedication rubs off Guttormsen is a former recipient of UiB’s learning environment prize. The justification text stated that by activating and interacting with students, she creates a sense of security that benefits the teaching situation. She has also established a community of teachers, staff members and advanced students around her. The students are actively engaged in circle exercises in the gymnasium at the hospital. Sara Pihl has been looking forward to the practical exercises and is an admirer of Guttormsen, who came up with the idea. “Anne Berit is a driving force who stands out amongst her fellow teachers. She shows such great dedication, and this rubs off on us students. It’s pretty obvious that she loves what she does”, Pihl says.
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education | new journalistic tools
Professor Astrid Gynnild and Yusuf Omar at the conference "Mobile-spotting in the media”. Photo: University of Bergen
How mobile took over the media – and education The mobile phone has become the journalist's primary tool. New technologies are being integrated in the journalism and new media studies at the University of Bergen.
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o be ready for tomorrow's com munication challenges, our students must prepare for the unknown. This is why we emphasize active learning and let students explore new journalistic tools,” says Professor Astrid Gynnild from the Department of Information Science and Media Studies. She is head of the journalism studies at the University of Bergen (UiB).
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Media organisations discover Snapchat At the conference "Mobile-spotting in the media", in Bergen in January 2017, 16 journalism students explored the use of Snapchat as a news plat form. They collaborated with the world-renowned mobile journalist Yusuf Omar, who put together snaps from the students to create a mini documentary that was screened at the conference close.
“Snapchat is the fastest growing social media platform among people below the age of 30,” said Astrid Gynnild. She pointed out that Norwegian daily VG recently started experimen ting with Snapchat as part of its news coverage, and that this would trigger others to follow. “Having a Snapchat guru such as Yusuf visiting, we were able to add three days of Snapchat training as
part of our teaching. Exciting days with a steep learning curve for our students.”
Students receiving practical training According to Gynnild, the journalism students at UiB are familiar with being thrown in at the deep end when it comes to practical training. “It means a lot when you master new practical tools from day one. This provides an opening to discuss new approaches to what is quality content and the ethical dilemmas that journalists are confronted with on a daily basis. Journalism is a high risk sport and requires advanced integration of practical skills and analytical thinking,” she says. At the conference Gynnild intro duced the expression mobile-spotting. “Mobile-spotting refers to a world where images via smartphone increasingly control our actions. To "spot" is about noticing something. To discover. Journalists are constantly looking for quality content, unusual material, special or of importance to society. It's about focus and giving particular attention to one thing above something else,” says Gynnild.
“But what are we spotting with our mobiles? How do we use photos and videos? And what is the goal of what we publish? Incidentally, mobile-spotting is not just something a challenge for professional journ alists, but a challenge for anyone who owns a smartphone. We use new technology that hardly sets limits to what we can focus on and explore. We snap, click and tweet, and there is an audience for everything. Mobile journalism undoubtedly increases the power of activists and grassroots movements. It allows more voices to be heard.”
The challenges of mobile journalism She does, however, point to darker sides of our increasing use of mobile media. “Our dependence on mobile is a challenge for traditional edited media in relation to sources and the rise of selfie-journalism. When anyone can use their smartphone to record anything and anywhere, this also makes us vulnerable to surveillance, which is hard to regulate properly,” says Gynnild. She points to an ironic paradox
in our indiscriminate use of smart phones and social media. “This is no longer about a minority monitoring a majority. A lot of this is about an increasing number of people who voluntarily let themselves be monitored through social media. This is why it’s important to explore and understand the use of new technologies as part of our journalism studies programme,” she believes.
Media City Bergen In August 2017, the media and know ledge cluster Media City Bergen opens. UiB will offer six professionoriented Bachelor and Master pro grammes (in journalism, media and interaction design, and film and television). The studies will be located alongside a number of companies within the media and media technology industry. This gathering of media professionals will provide students with an even better offer in journalism and new media as well as opportunities to work closer with industry.
MOBILE INNOVATIONS: The so-called selfie-journalist Yusuf Omar inspired journalism students and academics alike when he held a workshop at the University of Bergen in January 2017. Photo: Astrid Gynnild the Uib Magazine.
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education | experience-based learning
Frede Thorsheim, School Laboratory for Natural Science and Mathematics, and Stein Dankert Kolstø, professor at the Department of Physics and Technology, UiB. Photo: Jens Helleland Ådnanes
Learning through practical experiences How can natural sciences become both interesting and useful to students? The book «Experience-based learning» addresses this question.
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he authors of the book «Experience-based learning» believe that their work cancontribute towards making positive changes in schools. Norwegian pupils are ranked below the European average in the natural sciences. The authors believe their book may contribute towards changing this. One of the objectives 38
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of the book is to encourage every pupil in a class to participate and think more actively than they do today. Everyone should be made to feel that they are able to master the subject matter. “The book tries to enable abso lutely everyone to participate in learning natural science subjects, even though they may may not know
everything. Everyone has to make a contribution,” Stein Dankert Kolstø, professor at the Department of Physics and Technology, says. Kolstø wrote the book in collabo ration with Frede Thorsheim and Mari Ugland Andresen. “We think the book can help make changes in school so that the pupils can learn through experience
Just a school outing like can generate a discussion on mathematics and aspects of science that might last several weeks,” Thorsheim says with a smile.
More reflection
The relevant school
Thorsheim is affiliated with the School Laboratory for Natural Science and Mathematics, which offers courses adn develops learning resources for teachers. The book is aimed at teachers and students at university college or university level. The authors believe that there is a current tendency in Norwegian schools to foster a lot of activity, but with little time for reflection and lack of focus on practical application of knowledge.
This kind of experiential learning creates interest in finding explana tions. The book illustrates several experience-based exercises through which pupils are able to give academic subjects practical applications. The pupils are also able to influence their local community through their school work. For example, pupils at Ytrebygda School have investigated the environmental impact of having the new Bergen Light Rail (Norwegian: Bybanen) system in their immediate vicinity.
“Many teachers are looking for good activities that can captivate their pupils. We address this in our book,” Thorsheim says.
“Personal experience and active participation are of more benefit to pupils than just reading and memorizing,” Kolstø explains. “These are real experiences. We want to make learning relevant, useful and investigative using scientific methods. Through this approach, the pupils will see that natural science is important for them,” Thorsheim adds.
Learning by doing The key to good learning is parti cipation. The educational ideal in the book is for pupils to gain knowledge from practical experiences that they can then discuss together in groups. Technical terms and complicated theory come at a later stage and provide a deeper understanding of what the pupils themselves have investigated. “What they learn is meant to give meaning to something the students have seen in reality, Kolstø says.” As one example, the authors mention a study visit to a business where pupils experimented with lifting three large sacks of the same size but which proved to have very different weights and contents. Afterwards, they discussed what the explanation could be for this. “By doing this, they learned about mass density, volume and packing.
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Photo: Jan Kåre Wilhelmsen
and gain new perspectives on how learning takes place. We provide the pupils with knowledge that they can use in their everyday lives,” Thorsheim adds.
Experience-based learning – methods for teaching natural science • Frede Thorsheim , Stein Dankert Kolstø and Mari Ugland Andresen • (Fagbokforlaget, 2016)
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THE PhD INTERVIEW | sarah uffelmann szeltner
Photo: Kim E. Andreassen
Wittgenstein: The poetic philosopher
Sarah Uffelmann Szeltner has investigated the concept of grammar in Ludwig Wittgenstein´s writing. – He wrote like a poet, Szeltner says.
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ou have done a geneticphilosophical investigation on Wittgenstein and grammar? What does this imply? “Well, I looked at Wittgenstein’s notion of grammar. He uses it not in the way it is commonly used, so I wanted to find out how he actually uses it.” And what did you find? “I found out that his concept of grammar changes in the course of his work. In the early 1930s Wittgenstein had conceived of grammar as a complete system of the rules for our use of words. He slowly started to move away from this conception when he realised that our language is not completely governed by rules, but that we often make up the rules 40
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as we go along with using language. The system of rules for our use of words is not complete and does not even consist of general rules. Thus, Wittgenstein gave up the idea of a theory of grammar and focused on how we use language in our everyday practices.” How has the fact that Wittgenstein only published one philosophical book during his lifetime: The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, (which he wrote while fighting in World War I) affected your thesis? “During his lifetime he worked on a second book, but these writings were published only posthumously. My aim was to understand his con-
cept of grammar against the background of his whole philosophical life. Later in his life, Wittgenstein was partly critical of what he had said in the Tractatus, but some of his essential views and aims did not change throughout his work.” Why did you choose this topic for your PhD-thesis? “I am interested in the relationship between language and the world. First I wanted to write about the realism-antirealism-debate, which means the questions concerning whether there exists an independent or objective reality, and whether (and if yes, how) we have access to it. I wanted to find out what Wittgenstein has to say to this, and if such distinct ions even make sense for him.
Sarah Uffelmann Szeltner
When I looked closer, I realised that Wittgenstein is concerned with the relation between grammar and the world, not language and the world. The concept of grammar, however, turned out to be very blurry and needed clarification.” Have you always been interested in Wittgenstein’s theories? “Before I did my PhD I studied Philosophy and English language and literature. I came across Wittgenstein during my studies in 2007 when a friend brought him up repeatedly in conversations. Wittgenstein’s idea of logic as a language game fascinated me at once.” What part of the philoso phical tree does Wittgenstein belong to? “He doesn’t fit into any category. People would often call him an analytic philosopher, but I don’t want to distinguish between analytic and continental philosophy. Besides, Wittgenstein was not only influenced by so-called analytic philosophers like Frege and Russell, but also by so-called continental philosophers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, for example. He was, if you want to give him a label, a philosopher of language and everyday practices. His style is also unique: he wrote small units of texts, called “remarks”, and compared philosophy with p oetry. Terry Eagelton once said that Wittgenstein is the philosopher for poets and composers.” Is there any poetry in your thesis? “No, unfortunately this is not a poetic thesis. I have written a poem on Wittgenstein, but it is not for publication.”
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The title of the dissertation: ”From system to use. A GeneticPhilosophical Investigation of the Concept of Grammar in Wittgenstein’s Philosophy"
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Born and raised: 1983 Kassel, Germany
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Education: A degree in Philosophy and English language and literature from University of Kassel, Germany
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07.10.2016: The PhD is done as a joint degree between University of Bergen and University of Kassel, Germany
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Disputation: Sarah Uffelmann Szeltner did her PhD on Wittgenstein in The Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen.
Has it mattered to you that Wittgenstein had a relationship with Norway? “Of course the fact that the Wittgenstein Archives are in Bergen was important to me. Not so much, however, that Wittgenstein himself was in Norway. But I was lucky for having been able to visit the remains of his house in Skjolden at the Sognefjord, and I can understand why he wanted to spend time working there; it is a very beautiful and inspirational place.” You have done a joint degree between University of Bergen and University of Kassel. In 2011 you moved to Bergen. Why did you choose to come here for your PhD? “First I came here on holiday in 2008 and fell in love with Bergen, but I didn’t think of actually moving here. But then I got acquainted with the work by professor Alois Pichler, who is my advisor on the dissertation, and I had the strong wish to work with him. What I have enjoyed the most about the University of Bergen is that PhD-students are much more integrated in academic life than in Germany. The Wittgenstein Archives, where my office used to be, is next
to the master students’ reading room, making communication easy. In the German system, being a PhD student does not guarantee you an office. In Bergen I also got to know many other PhD-students in the humanities because of the course work that needed to be done in addition to writing the thesis. I really recommend taking a PhD here in Bergen. Now I can say that I have two homes, Bergen and Kassel.” And now you are sailing away from Bergen and academia? “Yes, I am now entering the “real” work life. I am going to work on a cruise ship as a tour leader. In my opinion, especially philosophers, who work so much with texts, isolated in their offices, need to experience life outside academia too. In a sense, my decision is also in line with W ittgenstein – I think he would approve.”
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SAFETY ONLINE | mohsen toorani
STAY SAFE ONLINE: There are many ways to have your personal information compromised and abused online. Luckily, there are ways to stay safe. Photo: Arjun Ahluwalia (art)
HOW TO STAY SAFE ONLINE More and more of our lives are moved online: our money, our personal information and our social life are entrusted to the algorithms and safety measures of companies and institutions. Should we trust them?
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hat should we be worried about when we go online? "What we should be worried about is fraud and misuse of information, compromised privacy and exploitation of kids", says Mohsen Toorani, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen (UiB). Toorani finished his PhD on security protocols in 2015, and is an expert on crypto graphy and information security. “When you post pictures or share your personal information online, the information might be used to level an attack against you. Sharing location information can provide useful information for anyone that
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wants to harm you. For example, posting a photo and location on Facebook or posting your travel plans while you are on a trip will inform burglars that your house is empty or that your family is home alone. That’s probably not a good idea then. Any other safety concerns? “Phishing websites can gather your personal information and misuse it. The number of phishing websites increased by 250 percent between October 2015 and March 2016, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group data.” “Identity thieves gather personal information from social media websites. Despite benefits, there are risks associated with the
use of social media. There are many ways a hacker might use the avail-able information for bad purposes. Social networking websites are famous for information gathering (intelligence), phishing, fraud, and spamming.” Most people log in to their bank with pass codes and security tokens. How does this work? “User authentication is usually based on a combination of factors: Something a user knows, a password, something a user has, a security token, and something a user is, biometric data. Most often, the authentication is based on two out of these three factors. There is always a trade-off
postcard from bergen
Five advice for stronger passwords
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• Select strong passwords composed of a random combination of lower and capital letters, numbers and characters.
Oda Bjerkan Leader of Bergen Student Society (Studentersamfunnet i Bergen)
• Never share your password or PIN with anyone. • Select different passwords for different services. • Change your passwords regularly. • Never save passwords even when you are prompted to do so by your browser. If someone else uses your computer later, she or he would then have access to your account.
Mohsen Toorani, postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen. Photo: Jens Helleland Ådnanes
PHoto: Oda Bjerka n
between security and usability. Usability is a critical factor that can drive a bank to lower its security threshold to satisfy its customers’ desires.” How safe are these methods? “Banks use cryptographic techniques to provide security. However, this is not the whole story. Even with the use of strong cryptographic techniques, there are always ways to launch an attack. For example, if there is a keylogger installed on your computer that copies whatever you type, it can steal your password and sensitive information and send it to criminals. So we are never quite safe? "If strong cryptographic techniques are implemented correctly and the user interface is safe and understandable to all users, we would be somehow safe. However, there are still system properties that can affect the level of security." What should someone that has been compromised do? “If you have lost your bankcards or OTP generator, you should immediately contact the bank. For other cases, you may have to contact the owner of a website. The Slettmeg.no website provides some guide lines and information when things go wrong on different popular websites.”
Thoughts from a rooftop As a new student in Bergen, everything was lined up for me: all the things to do and places to go were just about limitless. Turning the city upside down in search of lecture halls, supermarkets and somewhere to grab a coffee, I would soon realize that I’d have to become best friends with Google Maps and TripAdvisor. How – and when – I would find my place in this little, yet big city was a question that haunted me daily. Crossing Torgallmenningen, I would see people moving with a sense of purpose not only between A and B, but navigating through life. My direct opposites back then, you could say. But that was then, and this is now; Bergen is no longer a stranger, but a friend of which I grow fonder with every passing day. I no longer walk straight past haunts that TripAdvisor doesn’t even mention, and I know exactly where to go and how long it takes me to get there. Meanwhile, my schedule has filled up with all the things I didn’t know I missed when I first came here. Life may have changed since then, but one thing is still the same: My love for the rooftops of Bergen has remained constant. The rooftop will provide you with four things vital to any Bergen student – fresh air, quiet, and a view of both the city and the bigger things. Who knows; maybe you’ll even catch a glimpse of sun? The rooftops are sanctuaries from the noise of the city, the stale air of the reading halls, and the chaos of an overfilled schedule. And, of course, a chance to see Bergen as the beauty it is.
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RETURN ADDRESS: Communication Division University of Bergen Nygårdsgt. 5 N-5015 BERGEN NORWAY
E-mail: post@ka.uib.no • Web: uib.no/en
the last picture | micro-algae In November, the University of Bergen's pilot project plant for growing of micro algae was opened at the Technology Centre Mongstad, north of Bergen. The goal is to develop micro algae to use as feed in the aquaculture industry. UiB has been working closely with the Seafood Innovation Cluster, a Norwegian Centre of Expertise, to establish the national micro algae plant. Micro algae are produced through the process of photosynthesis, the combination of nutrient, water, sun and CO2. The technology centre has been scaled to process 100,000 tons of CO2 annually.
A joint company, CO2Bio AS, is responsible for operating the plant in cooperation with the University of Bergen. The University of Bergen is the constructor of the plant and also is in charge of the academic work at the facility. Left to right some of the central people in the project: researcher Jeroen de Vree (Uni Research), head of project Hans Kleivdal (research director at Uni Research Miljø and associate professor at the Universitety of Bergen), senior researcher Dorinde Kleinegris (Uni Research) and processing engineer Tom Roger Lid (CO2Bio).
Photo: Thor Brødreskift