BSRS 2009: Courses
Main content
Course 1
Course 1
Economics of cooperation: The case of climate change
Course leader
Gunnar S. Eskeland, Professor, Environmental and Climate Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH)
Guest course leaders
Helge Drange, Professor of Oceanography, University of Bergen and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research
Rognvaldur Hannesson, Professor, Department of Social Economics, NHH
Leif Sandal, Professor, Department of Finance and Management Science, NHH
Short course description
Climate change can be thought of as the ‘ultimate’ environmental challenge: The benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be shared globally by the world’s rich and poor nations, by present and future generations. Reaping these benefits requires efforts and sacrifices today.
The course aims to give students a firm grasp of what this challenge represents, in order to be analysed as a problem of cooperation. It is centered on economics as a methodology and will use simple mathematical tools to formalize thinking.
Full course description and syllabus (PDF)
Course 2
Course 2
Approaches to Past Climate Change - CANCELLED
"Approaches to Past Climate Change" has been cancelled due to the insufficient number of applicants. All applicants to this course have been evaluated for possible acceptance to the course of their second priority.
Course leaders
Tore Sætersdal, Director The Nile Basin Research Programme (NBRP)
Randi Håland, Department of Archeology, History, Culture and Religion, UiB
Per Ditlef Fredriksen, Department of Archeology, History, Culture and Religion, UiB
Short course description
The course explores the role of cultural historical research and archaeology in
building knowledge about climate change across a time span of thousands of
years.
It will be focused on case studies from the African continent and beyond.
The course will also address different approaches to archaeological research.
Course 3
Course 3
Doing mixed methods research on climate interacting with poverty, health and culture
Course leaders
Maurice B. Mittelmark , professor, Centre for Helath Promotion (HEMIL), UiB
Gro Th. Lie, Professor, Centre for Health Promotion (HEMIL), UiB
Elisabeth Fosse, Associate Professor, Centre for Health Promotion (HEMIL), UiB
Course description, goals and objectives
This course will focus on study designs for the conduct of individual studies, and programmes of study, suitable for research in the context of climate as a force for change in poverty, health and culture.
Researchers working in these arenas have traditionally gravitated towards either quantitative or qualitative research, and few researchers have all the skill needed to combine successfully the two approaches. Yet this situation is changing, and mixed methods research is finding acceptance by peers, funding agencies and journal editors. The appeal is that research combining qualitative and quantitative traditions may offer valuable insight about phenomena that would escape a researcher working in just one or the other tradition.
This doctoral level course will be comprised of lectures, group work, seminars and a paper. Using their own research, background and experience, and the course readings as the main resources, the students will address three seminar topics, with students taking responsibility for preparing and leading the seminars:
- “Pros and cons of conducting mixed methods research in doctoral research”
- “Challenges in judging the quality of reports of mixed methods research”
- “Communicating the advantages of mixed methods to skeptical audiences”
Course 4
Course 4
Psychological and social science perspectives on climate change
Course leaders
Gisela Böhm, (coordinator), Professor, DICE-Lab, UiB
Daniel Hanβ, Ph.D. Stipendiat, DICE-Lab, UiB
Tom Backer Johnsen, Associate Professor, DICE-Lab, UiB
Erling Moxnes, Professor, System Dynamics Group, UiB
Invited course leaders
Ann Bostrom , Associate Professor and Associate Dean For Research, Evans School of Public Affairs, University of Washington
Robert O`Connor , Professor, PennState University, and Program Director for Decision, Risk and Management Sciences, NSF
Short course description
The aim of this course is to familiarize the participants with the current state of theory, research, and methods in the study of human perception and behavior in the field of climate change.
Approaches within psychology and the social sciences that investigate the role of individual actions in addressing climate change will be explored and related to the different research perspectives of the course participants.
Course 5
Course 5
Impact of Climate Change on Marine and Terrestrial Resources
Course leaders
Prof. Vigdis Vandvik and Ass. Prof. John-Arvid Grytnes, Department of Biology, UiB
Hjalmar Hatun, Senior scientist, Faroese Fisheries Laboratory, Faroe Islands
Tore Furevik, Professor, Geophysical Institute, UiB
General theme and objectives of the course
Man-induced climate change is affecting a number of natural resources, both on land and in the marine realm, and will have important consequences onto the ecosystems that they operate on as well as on human societies and communities that are depending on them.
This course will through a series of overview lectures make the participants familiar with the basics of the climate system, and how the marine and terrestrial ecosystems are tightly linked to the range of climate variables.
The course aims at providing the student with (i) a working knowledge of the past, present, and future climate change, (ii) examples of how climate change affects natural resources and biodiversity in the terrestrial and marine realms, and (iii) on how climate change impacts will interact with major global change drivers.
Course 6
Course 6
Framing Climate Change: Ethics, Vulnerability and the Poor
Course leaders
Asuncion Lera St.Clair, Department of Sociology, University of Bergen and (from January 1, 2009) Scientific Director of the Comparative Research Programme on Poverty (CROP), International Social Science Council (ISSC)
Victoria Lawson, Professor Department of Geography, University of Washington, Member of the Executive Board of the West Coast Poverty Center (WCPC) Seattle, USA. Professor II, Department of Sociology, University of Bergen.
Invited course leaders
Simon Caney, Professor in Political Theory, Magdalen College, University of Oxford, UK
Michael Thompson, Institute Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria; and Fellow, James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization, Said Business School, Oxford University
Karen O’Brien, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Chair of the Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) project, International Human Dimensions Program on Global Environmental Change (IHDP)
Short course description
The course explores and critically analyses the ways in which emergent discourses around climate change, adaptation and mitigation are being framed by dominant actors.
It presents a dialogue between poverty and development studies and an understanding of environmental challenges and climate change from the perspective of their human dimensions. This dialogue includes attending to critical ethical perspectives in all of these fields.
The course thus aims to introduce a more comprehensive understanding of how climate change is linked to social and economic development pathways, and including the ways that individuals and communities perceive themselves in relation to one another and the world around them.
