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  • E-mailscott.bremer@uib.no
  • Phone+47 55 58 29 85
  • Visitor Address
    Parkveien 9
    Ida Bloms hus
    5007 Bergen
    Room 
    201
  • Postal Address
    Postboks 7805
    5020 Bergen

I am a Research Professor (Forsker I) with a background in environmental planning, policy and governance, and most of my recent work is on climate adaptation governance.

I am interested in how science and other ways of knowing are used in support of decisions and action in governance institutions, including at the so-called 'science-policy interface'. Over the past five years I've been uncovering the taken-for-granted, cultural and tacit knowledges of climate that influence how individuals and groups adapt; their cultural frameworks of seasons for example, or their notions of time.

I conduct research mainly in an 'extended' or participatory mode, in collaboration with groups in society, to co-produce knowledge and action for addressing the challenges they face. I aim to make visible those knowledges that have been overlooked or marginalised, including local, traditional, and practical knowledges. I am guided by perspectives on 'transdisciplinarity' and 'post-normal science', and practical approaches to 'citizen science', and 'climate services' for example.

Through my research I try to be active on both sides of the science-policy interface. I am a research associate at NORCE Climate, where I work closely with climate scientists in thinking about how to link their science to governance processes, including at the 'Climate Futures' centre. I am also vice-chair of the Young Academy of Europe (associated with Academia Europaea), providing targeted inputs to European science-policy and science-for-policy. I also have an adjunct assistant professor position at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

Beyond research, I am also passionate about developing and teaching curricula for early career researchers around 'how to do' transdisciplinary co-production in practice. Most recently, this sees me co-designing PhD schools in Africa as part of the Norwegian Research Council-funded CATER project.

I'm currently project leader of the ERC Starting Grant CALENDARS project.

I see important overlaps between how we conduct research and how we communicate it. I'm interested in setting up creative spaces where groups can simultaneously learn from research, and contribute to it.

In the CALENDARS project, we have been asking people in Bergen to re-create the primstav - traditional calendar stick - for contemporary life in the city. We've run workshops in collaboration with Aldea atelier in 2020, and with school children at the science open day 2019.

I've been active in facilitating citizen science initiatives in Bangladesh and Bergen, and for me these are exercises for learning through doing research.

Though I have always worked in a transdisciplinary mode, I have been frustrated that the findings of this research often end up published through traditional scientific channels, in a format inaccessible to the communities we work with. In 2024 I will publish a book on Changing Seasonality, which aims to take transdisciplinarity 'full circle'. The book comprises 33 chapters from researchers, but also practitioners we collaborated with – beekeepers, artists, writers – from around the world. Chapters are real-life accounts of how people from many walks of life revise their seasonal frameworks, written in an authentic way for each author, and accessible to a public readership.

 

I'm regularly invited to give guest lectures in courses at various departments of the University of Bergen, and the Norwegian School of Economics, and I'm a lecturer at the Norwegian Research School in Environmental Humanities.

I am passionate about developing and teaching curricula for early career researchers around 'how to do' transdisciplinary co-production in practice. Most recently, this sees me co-designing PhD schools in Africa as part of the Norwegian Research Council-funded CATER project; a spin-off of a PhD course on 'Co-producing climate adaptation research' that I developed with others in October 2019. 

I also co-led the design and implementation of a Europe-wide course on conducting transdisciplinary research, for undergraduate and masters level students in seven universities (circa 200 students), as part of the ARQUS alliance.

I currently supervise five PhD candidates and two masters students.

  • Show author(s) (2024). How seasonal cultures shape adaptation on Aotearoa – New Zealand's Coromandel Peninsula. Global Environmental Change. 1-12.
  • Show author(s) (2023). Co-producing representations of summer rainfall in Bangladesh. Regional Environmental Change.
  • Show author(s) (2023). Climate change challenges and opportunities for beekeeping in western norway.
  • Show author(s) (2023). Carefully transforming our institutions: how they change, how they listen. 10 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2022). «Beeware» workshop – kalenderendringer for birøkt på Vestlandet.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Recognising the social functions of climate services in Bergen, Norway. Climate Services. 15 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Local representations of a changing climate. 21 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2022). High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability. Frontiers Media S.A..
  • Show author(s) (2022). Editorial: High-Quality Knowledge for Climate Adaptation: Revisiting Criteria of Credibility, Legitimacy, Salience, and Usability. Frontiers in Climate.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Changing climate, changing beekeeping.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Changing beekeeping seasons in Vestland, Norway. 7 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2022). Changing Beekeeping Seasons in Vestlandet, Norway .
  • Show author(s) (2022). BeeWare- Sesongendringer og klimavarsling i birøkt.
  • Show author(s) (2021). Quality Assessment in Co-developing Climate Services in Norway and the Netherlands. Frontiers in Climate. 1-15.
  • Show author(s) (2021). Extended Peer Communities: Appraising the contributions of tacit knowledges in climate change decision-making. Futures: The journal of policy, planning and futures studies.
  • Show author(s) (2021). Beyond rules: how institutional cultures and climate governance interact. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (WIRESs).
  • Show author(s) (2021). A water culture perspective for food security. 6 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2020). The role of place-based narratives of change in climate risk governance. Climate Risk Management.
  • Show author(s) (2020). Portrait of a climate city: How climate change is emerging as a risk in Bergen, Norway. Climate Risk Management.
  • Show author(s) (2020). Local narratives of change as an entry point for building urban climate resilience. Climate Risk Management. 1-15.
  • Show author(s) (2020). Grand Challenges for Climate Risk Management. Frontiers in Climate.
  • Show author(s) (2019). ‘My new routine’: Assessing the impact of citizen science on climate adaptation in Bangladesh. Environmental Science and Policy. 1-13.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Toward a multi-faceted conception of co-production of climate services. Climate Services. 42-50.
  • Show author(s) (2019). Panel discussion on citizen science projects in meteorology .
  • Show author(s) (2019). Initial Guidance Framework for Knowledge Quality Assessment in CoCliServ (CoCliServ D5.1). .
  • Show author(s) (2018). Co-producing "post-normal" climate knowledge with communities in northeast Bangladesh. Weather, Climate, and Society. 259-268.
  • Show author(s) (2018). An Evolving Framework for Advancing Climate Services in Norway . EOS.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Narrative as a method for eliciting tacit knowledge of climate variability in Bangladesh. Weather, Climate, and Society. 669-686.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Have we given up too much? On yielding climate representation to experts. Futures: The journal of policy, planning and futures studies. 72-75.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Co-production in climate change research: reviewing different perspectives. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (WIRESs).
  • Show author(s) (2017). Climate research, citizen science and art in Bangladesh.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Climate research, citizen science and art in Bangladesh.
  • Show author(s) (2017). Assessing climatic trends of extreme rainfall indices over northeast Bangladesh. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. 1-12.
  • Show author(s) (2017). A critical assessment of knowledge quality for climate adaptation in Sylhet Division, Bangladesh. Climate Risk Management. 43-58.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Weaknesses in the ethical framework of aquaculture related standards. Marine Policy. 11-18.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Sustainable aquaculture governance: challenges to participatory standard setting. 6 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2016). Inclusive governance of aquaculture value-chains: Co-producing sustainability standards for Bangladeshi shrimp and prawns. Ocean and Coastal Management. 13-24.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Responsible techno-innovation in aquaculture: Employing ethical engagement to explore attitudes to GM salmon in Northern Europe. Aquaculture. 370-381.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Negotiating a place for sustainability science: Narratives from the Waikaraka Estuary in New Zealand. Environmental Science and Policy. 47-59.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Climate change and agri-cultural knowledge: Bangladesh through a mirror and magnifying glass. 387-393. In:
    • Show author(s) (2015). Know your food. Food ethics and innovation. Wageningen Academic Publishers.
  • Show author(s) (2015). Challenges to Evaluating Coastal Management in the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from the Lofoten Archipelago. 20 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2014). 'No right to rubbish': Mobilising post-normal science for planning Gisborne's wastewater outfall. Marine Policy. 22-30.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Whose sustainability counts? Engaging with debates on the sustainability of Bangladeshi shrimp. 8 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Reflexively Mapping the Science-Policy Interface for Coastal Zones. 12 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Mobilising knowledge for coastal governance: re-framing the science-policy interface for integrated coastal management. Coastal Management. 56 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Mobilising high-quality knowledge through dialogic environmental governance: a comparison of approaches and their institutional settings. International Journal of Sustainable Development. 66-90.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Mapping the ethical terrain of Chinese aquaculture. 18 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Framing a 'Post-Normal' Science-Policy Interface for Integrated Coastal Zone Management. 13 pages.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Exploring the science-policy interface for Integrated Coastal Management in New Zealand. Ocean and Coastal Management. 107-118.
  • Show author(s) (2013). Bioscience and Innovation Research: Examining the GM Animals Case with Indian Researchers Using the Ethical Matrix. Asian Biotechnology and Development Review. 1-17.
  • Show author(s) (2012). Mapping core values and ethical principles for livelihoods in Asia. 6 pages.

More information in national current research information system (CRIStin)

Bremer, S. (2012). Framing a ‘post-normal’ science-policy interface for Integrated Coastal Zone Management. In: E. Moksness, E. Dahl, and J. Støttrup (Eds.) Global Challenges in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (pp. 179-191).  Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell

Blanchard, A. & Bremer, S. (2012). Reflexively mapping the science-policy interface for coastal zones. In: E. Moksness, E. Dahl, and J. Støttrup (Eds.) Global Challenges in Integrated Coastal Zone Management (pp. 206-217).  Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell

Van den Belt, M., Forgie, V., Bremer S., McDonald, G., Lennox, J., Montes de Oca, O., Joy, M., (2010). Modelling tools for adaptive integrated assessment: a case study of New Zealand regional authorities. Research Monograph Series – No. 17. Palmerston North: EERNZ

Bremer, S. (2009). Evaluating the State of New Zealand’s Coastal Management: Application of Integrated Coastal Management Indicators at National and Local Scale. Research Monograph Series – No. 16. Palmerston North: EERNZ. ISBN 978-0-9582949-3-5. ISSN 1176-7251 (print). ISSN 1179-1179 (online)

Since working as a researcher at the University of Bergen, I have worked on the following research projects:

  • Doctor of Philosophy: Massey University New Zealand; "Exploring a 'post-normal' science-policy interface for Integrated Coastal Management"
  • Postgraduate Certificate in Public Policy: University of Victoria, New Zealand
  • Bachelor of Resource and Environmental Planning (Hons.): Massey University, New Zealand
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