Category: NRF Calendar

The International Summer School in Karelia 2009
- on Environmental Politics

Call for Participation

The 6th International Summer School in Karelia 2009 (ISSK´09) will be organized in Petrozavodsk, The republic of Karelia, Russia in 17th - 22nd of April 2009. The main theme of the ISSK'09 is "Environmental Politics (in the Eurasian North)".

Main Theme: Environmental Politics (in the Eurasian North)

The environment has been politicized and it has become an important field of politics, both domestic politics and international politics. Further, at the early-21 century the environment in general and particularly environmental protection is an important part of international and world politics, not the least in the Eurasian North. Some sort of environmental "awakening" started in the 1960s in many parts of the globe, and since that the environment has evoked very public concerns surrounding economic growth, environmental degradation, political stability, and the maintenance of post-modern, consumerist society.

Due to an obvious overlap among different aspects of the environment there have been academic, political and public debates on a state of the environment as well different discourses on environmental studies. There is, however, a room for further debates and interdisciplinary dialogue on societal and political aspects of the environment, and environmental security. Consequently, the ISSK'09 is one of the platforms to do that as the main theme "Environmental Politics (in the Eurasian North)" indicates.

ISSK'09 Outline

The ISSK'09 is one week course intends to approach environmental politics issue in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary manner. By bringing together recognised Nordic and Russian experts in related theoretical fields, ISSK'09 aims to provide students with an overall picture of the current trends in research of environmental politics, and environmental security, undertaken at some of the region's foremost educational institutions.

The Summer School will not only provide academic lectures but provides a forum for academics and public policy makers to weigh in on environmental issues and issues on environmental governance from their own perspectives. Simultaneously, students will be able to actively participate during the lectures and a roundtable discussion with invited experts in order to activate their own understanding of the environment and environmental issues. As a related part of the academic tuition, it would be good that students have an opportunity to experience some of the issues introduced on an excursion in the Republic of Karelia.

The lectures of the 2009 Summer School will take place at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of Petrozavodsk State University in Petrozavodsk.

The ISSK'09 is organized by Petrozavodsk State University (from Russia); and Aleksanteri Institute at University of Helsinki, University of Joensuu, University of Lapland and University of Tampere (from Finland); and School for Renewable Energy Science, RES (from Iceland).

Participation

The participation of the ISSK'08 is based on applications, which should include the following information of each student: name, address, discipline, university, studies on and / or special interest to the main theme.

The deadline for an application and pre-registration is 27th of February, 2009. Each participant will apply her / his visa for Russia.

For the successful completion of the course, the student is supposed to write an essay à 10-12 pages (25 000 marks minimum), within a month after the course. This will bring 5 ECTS.

There is no registration fee for the ISSK'09. The participation costs will be mainly consisted of travelling and accommodation costs and to apply a visa for Russia.

Draft Program

At the ISSK'09 there will be altogether from eight to ten lecturers, who are experts on the fields of Environmental Politics and Governance both from Russia, Finland and Iceland.

The draft program with the daily sub-themes, planned titles of lectures and confirmed or proposed names of lecturers is the following one:

• 1st day: "What is (international) Environmental Politics all about?"
  Lassi Heininen, "'Politicization' of the environment and international Environmental Politics as a part of IR and foreign policy"
  Natalia Zaslavskaya from St-Petersburg, "EU environmental politics" (tbc)
• 2nd day: "Climate change and energy (re)defining / challenging (international) Environmental Politics"
  Björn Gunnarsson, "Energy and climate change"
  Russian lecturer from Karelian brunch of the Russian Science Academy, "Climate change in the North: contemporary and possible scenarios" (tba)
• 3rd day: Excursion outside Petrozavodsk
• 4th day: "EU's and Russian environmental politics/policies, and EU / Nordic / Finnish -Russian cooperation on environmental protection and management"
  Tatiana Vasilieva, Ph.D. in Geography, Faculty of Geography, Pskov State University, "Baltic Sea environmental security" (tbc)Nina Tynkkynen, "Finnish / EU-Russian environmental cooperation and ND Environmental partnership"
• 5th day: "Forestry as a case study, and forestry management as environmental policy"
  Taru Peltola, Finnish Environmental Institute, "Bioenergy from forest: a wicked case of environmental policy?"
  Ludmila Ivanova, Kola Science Centre, Russia, "Forestry in North-West Russia"
• 6th day: "Environmental ‘awakening', rise of environmental movements and environmental governance
  Anna Kuhmonen (title of the presentation to be announced)
  Alexander Berdino "Environmental project cooperation within the framework of TACIS and INTERREG programmes: concrete examples in the Eurasian North"

Roundtable discussion on environmental governance and management: invited public policy makers, private sector actors and NGO representatives from the Karelian Republic (tba)

About the International Summer School in Karelia

The International Summer School in Karelia (ISSK) is an extraordinary meeting-point for Russian and Finnish as well other Nordic university students focusing their research on European, Russian and Northern studies. Since the pilot Summer School in 2003 the ISSK's goal has been to bring together a modest amount of master's degree students for one week at Petrozavodsk State University (PetrSU) in Petrozavodsk, Russia, or other locations in Russia (or Finland), and activate their knowledge of topics they have covered during tuition at their home universities during the academic year.

Daily studying at the ISSK is consisted of both lectures by experts on the main theme (in mornings) and theme-workshops based on the lectures by students (in afternoons). The lecturers are Nordic and Russian scholars, scientists and experts, who also act as supervisors for the work in theme-workshops.

Among the main themes of the ISSK have been Geopolitics, Security, Eurasia, The Nordic cooperation and Energy. Coming now into its 6th year of existence in 2009, the International Summer/Spring School in Karelia is expanding its scope, vision and geography to include larger audience of students and provide them with a more diversified academic, professional and social learning experience.

The Organizing Committee for the ISSK is consisted of representatives, or contact persons, of the organizing institutions (see below) and Dr. Lassi Heininen, who is the Director of ISSK.

For further information about ISSK'09

Further and detailed information about ISSK'09 is available from Gleb Yarovoy, who acts as the Coordinator of the ISSK'09 (e-mail: gleb.yarovoy (at) mail.ru), or from other members of the Organizing Committee:

•  Björn Gunnarsson, Director, School of Renewable Energy Sciences, Iceland (bjorn.gunnarsson (at) res.is)
  
• Lassi Heininen, Docent, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, Finland (lassi.heininen (at) ulapland.fi)
  
• Tapani Kaakkuriniemi, Director, Master's Programme (tapani.kaakkuriniemi (at) helsinki.fi) / Eeva Korteniemi, Tempus Project (eeva.korteniemi (at) helsinki.fi), Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland)
  
•  Nina Tynkkynen, Senior assistant, Department of Environmental Politics, University of Tampere, Finland (nina.tynkkynen (at) uta.fi)
  
• Joni Virkkunen, Researcher, Karelian Institure, University of Joensuu (joni.virkkunen (at) joensuu.fi)
  
• Gleb Yarovoy, Lecturer (gleb.yarovoy (at) mail.ru) or Maria Pitukhina, Lecturer (pitukhina (at) petrsu.ru), Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, PetrSU, Russia

 

EventList powered by schlu.net