Understanding climate
for the benefit of society

Research training, PhD forum and Early Career Scientists Forum 

* Norwegian Research School Chess 
* the summer school ACDC
* the Bjerknes PhD Forum 
* the SciSnack writing community
* Proposal writing class
* the Bjerknes Early Career Scientist Forum 

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The Bjerknes PhD Forum


The PhD Forum is open for all PhD-candidates affiliated with the Bjerknes Centre. The Bjerknes PhD Forum intends to create a community for international and Norwegian PhD students from different research areas during their time in Bergen. Our aim is to facilitate exchange among new and advanced PhD students as well as to distribute and preserve knowledge about “the way things work”.

We meet about once a month to network and discuss different aspects of the academic career and/or life in Bergen. Visiting PhD students and interns are welcome to join our activities.

The PhD Forum

The current PhD Forum board members are:

 

Bjerknes Early Career Scientist Forum - ECSF

The ECSF is open to all post-doctoral Early Career Scientists affiliated with the Bjerknes Centre, e.g. postocs and independent researchers in their early career years. The goal of the ECSF is to create a more supportive and better networked community within the Bjerknes ECSs, and to provide relevant career development opportunities beneficial to our career stage. We provide a platform for the exchange of relevant information via the mailing list. 

What do we do?

  • We aim to organize two skill-building workshops per year.
  • We organize a few social activities per year. 
  • We have two regular networking / community-building events: 
    1) Wednesdays, weekly at 09:00-11:00: Writing /task session at Bergen Kaffebrenneri
    2) Thursdays in semester period at 11:45-12:30: Common lunch at the GFI cafeteria 

How to join: 
Send an email to Robert Law at robert.law@uib.no to be added to the ECSF mailing list. Here you will be notified of upcoming ECSF activities. 

Join us and make suggestions:
If you have an idea for a workshop or event, please suggest it to any of us on the organizing committee. We are always looking for ideas for how the ECSF can better serve the community and welcome your engagement.
If you identify yourself as a post-doctoral early career scientist* affiliated with the Bjerknes Centre. Visiting ECSs are also welcome to join.
If you are interested in being the next representative of one of the research themes, reach out to the current representative. We encourage and appreciate your engagement and contributions. 

*Who is an Early Career Scientist? Inspired by the EGU and AGU ECS definition, the BCCR ECS Forum targets practicing scientists who received their PhD within the recent years. The definition of recent is left to one's personal opinion to promote inclusivity. For reference, EGU / AGU uses 7 years. 
 

The ECSF Committee

The ECSF organizing commitee:
The activities are organized by a committee with four representative for the period 2024-2025: 

 

ECSF kick off meeting group photor
April, 7th 2022, ECS forum kick-off meeting. Photo: Natalya Gallo

The Norwegian Research School CHESS

The CHESS - Research school on changing climates in the coupled earth system, are made to create a Norwegian research-training environment for PhD Candidates in the respective study fields. 

"Climate change leads to an increasing need for process understanding, reduced uncertainties, and more reliable data for mitigation and impact studies. This calls for a new generation of researchers that have strong and broad knowledge about the climate system in the fully coupled Earth System" - as they write on their website. 

The research school set up a large number of workshops and field activities every year, like the IceFinse field course in April 2021 - read more on the CHESS website

Participants at the IceFinse field course having a break in the snow.
Participants at the IceFinse field course having a break in the snow. Photo: Tobias Zolles

 

 

 


The Summer School ACDC - Advanced Climate Dynamic Courses 

 

The ACDC - Advanced Climate Dynamic Courses are a series of annual summer schools aimed at advanced PhD students, selection is come

The courses are coordinated by the Norwegian Research School on Changing Climates in the coupled Earth System (CHESS) and are part of the partnership in climate between the Bjerknes Centre in Bergen, University of Washington in Seattle, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, University of Texas at Austin, Harvard and McGill.


In 2019 the ACDC summer school held their 10 years anniversary conference, gathering alumni students and lecturers.

Read more about ACDC here 

 


SciSnack - the writing community 

SciSnack started out as ClimateSnack - an inter-disciplinary community where early career scientists interact in order to improve their writing and communication skills. SciSnack welcomes and encourages all young and early-career climate scientists irrespective of present writing skills and experience.

The SciSnack team writes: "By improving our story-telling skills we hope to improve our scientific writing. We hope to write better scientific articles where the message is clear and concise."

SciSnack provides a platform to discuss and give feedback on ideas and articles, aiding the revision and learning process. Afterwards, members publish their articles online. This interactive process, in tandem with extensive scientific outreach, will allow researchers to become aware of relevant research beyond their field and lead to a better understanding of climate research around the globe.

SciSnack.com is lead by Bjerknes member Andrew Seidl

 

Group photo of Scisnack leaderteam
The old and new generation SciSnack in 2019: Anne Katrine Faber, Mathilda Hallerstig, Mathew Stiller-Reeve, Andrew Seidl and Kristine Flacké Haualand

 


Proposal writing class

Proposal Class concept

Training and coaching for early career scientists at the Bjerknes Centre to develop and formulate own research ideas into successful project proposals.

When: Once a year, starting in October, 4 months before the main application deadline of Research Council of Norway (NFR), bi-weekly meetings of 1,5 hours. Remote work on participants’ own proposals in between the classes. Regular feedback on the remote work.

Read more about it here, or contact Friederike Hoffmann for more information.