Flower love in Bjørndalen
9 July 2020
What are those weird things in Bjørndalen?
The Arctic Biology Department at UNIS has co-located many research and education projects in Bjørndalen with the aim of building a “field laboratory”.
2020 – A good sea ice year in Svalbard?
7 July 2020
It has been hot, very hot, in the fjords of Svalbard since 2006. But over the past year we have seen a cooling down. More cold and fresh Arctic water has followed the coastal flow along the west coast and inflow of warm Atlantic water has slowed down, as low autumn and winter temperatures have cooled the fjords so that sea ice has formed again.
World Oceans Day: The Nansen Legacy
8 June 2020
June 8 is World Oceans Day and in commemoration of this we focus on the Nansen Legacy project and UNIS activities within the project in 2019.
UNIS Annual Report 2019
27 May 2020
In 2019, 743 students spent shorter or longer periods at UNIS, including both course students and guest master’s students. 50% of the students came from programmes of study at Norwegian universities, the rest from international universities.
Biodiversity Day in Svalbard
22 May 2020
Today is the International Day for Biological Diversity or World Biodiversity Day. We mark this important day by having a couple of our scientists present the work they do within marine biodiversity in Svalbard, whether in the sea ice on the east coast or in Isfjorden outside Longyearbyen.
Can cruise tourists become citizen scientists?
24 April 2020
The project CRUISE#SCIENCE developed citizen science methods for research dissemination and active learning on board circumnavigating expedition ships in Svalbard. The results of the project, headed by the Department of Arctic Biology at UNIS, show that this kind of citizen involvement has added value for both UNIS and the cruise operator.
Internship and Covid-19
21 April 2020
Despite the Covid-19 situation, our five students in the bioCEED internship course have managed to continue their work for their clients – whether from their home “office” in Longyearbyen, in mainland Norway or in Australia.
Apply for autumn courses 2020
26 February 2020
Apply now for UNIS autumn semester courses! The application deadline is 15 April 2020.
While we wait for the light – part 3
23 February 2020
While we wait for the light, we are still struggling to define how “dark” or “bright” it really is in the polar night. We know that organisms out there are able to respond to light we cannot see, and we know that polar night is not just a continuous darkness. But it is incredibly much more difficult to measure light in the dark than you might think.