After all the action the last few days everyone was planning on catching up on some sleep. But once again, the beautiful Svalbard summer night made the hours of sleep short and few. Still we managed to hide the worst yawning and enthusiastically absorb the morning lecture on marine biology in the Arctic given by Ole Jørgen Lønne.
Later on, Dave Carlson, the IPY man himself, and Jenny Basemen, APECS’s queen, really stirred our ambitions. Their lectures on career development and the impotents of networking and “sales techniques” was interesting, but sort of daunting. Then we heard news about what was happening that evening: speed-dating with politicians from the Nordic Council. We were to have five minutes to introduce ourselves and the IPY Field School and convince them of the importance of Arctic research.
This turned out to be a fun experience and we discovered that politics is also about having good conversations over a beer.
Author: Solveig Otterå (Norway)
Photos: Sean Buchanan
Speed dating with the Nordic research council.