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Children from Camp 2 playing on a pasture close to an oil rig on the Toravei deposit, Nenets AO, Barents Region, Russia. ©Florian Stammler |
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To know more about the Thematic Network on Arctic Extractive Industries, visit our web page.
Overall Goal
As much of future oil and gas development will happen in the Arctic, the links between the circumpolar North and the rest of our planet will further increase as well as the public impact of industrial development, not least on companies as well as states' reputations and most significantly on the populations which live in the Arctic. It is known that economic activity and business development play a crucial role in ensuring welfare and employment in the North. Petroleum and other extractive industries can contribute to increasing capital, and employment opportunities in the Arctic; however, successful establishment of these industries requires further focus on the social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts from the local to the global level, and building competence and skill-sets needed for industry support. Over the past several years, the need has become apparent to create a systematic means for generating new research (both theoretical and practical) in the field of Arctic Extractive Industries.
Therefore the collaborating institutions in coordination with the University of the Arctic have established a Pan-Arctic PhD programme in Arctic Extractive Industries to train highly qualified researchers trained physically in the North and who can contribute with original research to the viability of northern extractive industrial development. The expertise generated by PhD's completed in this field may turn out valuable for all interested parties in northern development (including companies, NGO's, state administrators, indigenous and local people's associations).
Main Activities
The PhD program offers the possibilities for students to travel to other Universities throughout the Arctic to take supplemental courses to existing PhD programs at the collaborating universities. These supplemental courses are created jointly by the collaborating Universities and are based on the specific competences each host University.
The supplemental courses provide (and encourage) professors to be mobile and to team teach at other Universities as well as collaborate on new research projects and publications in the field of Arctic Extractive Industries. In the similar vein, students from the participating Universities are able to choose from the list of supplemental courses provided throughout the participating Arctic Universities. These courses are open to the wider University of Arctic students as well as students at the PhD level more generally.
Creating a competent workforce cannot be done by Universities alone and requires strong collaboration between education/research, private actors and government. As such, our aim is to continue to work in close collaboration with existing networks of industry, NGO's and international organisations (with the expectation to expand this network). The extent of possible collaboration will include: funding PhD scholarships, dissertations, funding extra seminars and workshops (e.g. see: http://www.hcahome.com/ for the Arctic Dialogue that was organised in Nuuk, Greenland September 2011), travel money for research and workshops as well as job recruitment.
The collaborating Universities jointly train the students both broadly in the field of Extractive Industries (which will be grounded in theory which will be an outcome of faculty research) as well as specifically in the disciplines relevant for their fields (e.g. IR, anthropology, business studies). Students are required to attend courses in all participating institutions to a certain extent and the collaborating Universities agree to accept credits from all participating institutions.
Throughout the PhD period students meet for annual grad school seminars. Assignments include mandatory participation in several meaningful conferences to choose from and agreed with by the supervisors and collaborating institutions (e.g. The Arctic Dialogue, the International Congress of Arctic Social Scientists, the Jokkmokk Winter Conference).
Dissertations will be defended and degrees will be awarded by participant institutions, which will include a certificate in Arctic Extractive Industries awarded by the University of the Arctic.
Activities in 2012
A PhD Programme in Arctic Extractive Industries Course:
Human Resource Issues in Extractive Industries
Where: Memorial University, St. John’s Canada
When: Sept. 10 to 16, 2012
Description: Recognizing the tremendous commercial appetite for resource development in this harsh yet vulnerable region, this course will examine the human, environmental, economic and social consequences of preventing, allowing or facilitating that development.
Taking an inter-disciplinary approach, the course will explore the issues and research from a variety of academic perspectives, such as anthropology, international relations, history, economics, law, organizational behaviour, human resource management and labour relations as well as considering sub-national, national, and transnational differences.
This course follows the successful completion of the “Arctic Extractive Industries: Issues of Sustainability and Resource Management in the Arctic” course held in Bodø/Svolvær, Norway in 2011.
Students will benefit from six days of intensive study with some of the world’s top experts in the social aspects of extractive industrial development in the Arctic.
In addition, there is one day free to interact informally with professors and other students, and to explore St John’s and Newfoundland.
Students successfully completing this course and the other requirements for the Thematic Network will receive a certificate from the University of the Arctic that certifies their special expertise in Arctic Extractive Industries. Inquiries can be directed to Jessica Shadian or Florian Stammler.
Partners
Memorial University, St. John’s Canada Sept. 10 to 16, 2012 Recognizing the tremendous commercial appetite for resource development in this harsh yet vulnerable region, this course will examine the human, environmental, economic and social consequences of preventing, allowing or facilitating that development.