Read more at: norway.org/scienceweek
"Science and technology play a central and motivating role in efforts towards sustainable development. International collaboration in these areas is essential if we are to meet the most pressing global challenges of our time: climate change, energy supply, environmental issues and health issues," explains Norway's Minister of Research and Higher Education, Tora Aasland. She will be attending the event, along with around 200 other central research parties. This year's Science Week is scheduled for 18-21 October 2010 and will be held in Washington DC.
American–Norwegian health collaboration
Global health research is one of the main subjects on the agenda for Science Week. Basing discussions on presentations of research work at Norwegian and American institutions, the goal is to identify areas of common interest which pave the way for collaboration. The Research Council of Norway and USA's National Institute of Health will also seize the opportunity to follow up on the letter of intent signed by both institutions regarding global health research and biobanks.
"One concrete goal is to establish at least one new collaboration project between American and Norwegian institutions. This could for example involve disease control priorities, a field of research targeting the development of priority tools for use when choosing between different programmes and which aims at improving the standard of health and living conditions for marginalised populations in low or middle income countries," explains Kårstein Måseide, Coordinator for the Research Council's Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC).
Other main subjects for the Science Week include the climate and energy, innovation and research policy.
New wave of global collaboration
Transatlantic Science Week has grown into a popular meeting place where researchers, research administrators and policy makers from Norway, Canada and the USA gather to discuss, establish and further develop collaborations involving research, innovation and higher education.
"This year, we aim to expand our perspective to include the importance of multinational global collaboration," says Special Adviser to the Research Council of Norway and recently erstwhile Counsellor for Science attached to the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, Berit Johne.
She believes that research collaboration must be considered in the light of a number of undercurrents, where co-publication, exchange agreements and inter-institutional collaboration are only a few of the main tides forming what is now known as "the new wave of global collaboration".
Science Week will include a panel debate regarding the emerging trends in global collaboration among researchers, teachers and research policy makers. Among those taking part in the panel debate are Steven Koonin, Under Secretary for Science in the US Department of Energy, Anne Kjersti Fahlvik, Executive Director of the Division for Strategic Priorities at the Research Council of Norway and Jarle Aarbakke, Rector of the University of Tromsø.
Astrophysics and solar energy
During Science Week, Roger Angel, one of three Kavli Prize Winners in astrophysics this year, will demonstrate how reasonably priced but advanced mirror concepts can be utilised to capture solar energy and create electricity. Together with the two other prize winners, Jerry Nelson and Ray Wilson, Roger Angel was awarded the Kavli Prize in Oslo in September. The three winners received this prize for their individual contributions towards developing large optical telescopes which have provided us with glimpses of objects and events at much more remote distances in space and time than we have ever seen before.