When the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre visited the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) in Canada on his way to the UN General Assembly in New York (22–29 September), he met with students to discuss current issues and international cooperation.
In her opening remarks, uOttawa President Marie-Eve Sylvestre highlighted the FieldEx collaboration in geosciences and fieldwork in cold regions as a concrete example of how research communities in Norway and Canada are investing in long-term relationships and student exchange.
Met the Prime Minister
For Tatiana Solfjell Huard, the day was especially memorable: she had the opportunity to ask a question during the conversation with the Prime Minister and to meet him afterwards together with other students at the university.
Tatiana, who has both Canadian and Norwegian roots, has already taken part in several FieldEx activities in Norway. She has participated in two field excursions to Finse and Jostedalen i Vestland County in the Western part of Norway, where she received training in conducting fieldwork under demanding conditions in extremely cold environments.
A collaboration for research and student exchange in cold regions
The FieldEx - Field Instrumentation and Measurements in Cold Region Environments collaboration aims to build partnerships in higher education through short-term exchange placements for master’s and PhD students, with a focus on field techniques in cold regions. The programme is hosted and administered by the Department of Geosciences at the University of Oslo and coordinated by Regine Hock (UiO) and Luke Copland (uOttawa). The programme began in 2025 and will run until 2028.
Several previous thematic collaboration programmes between Norway and Canada, focusing on research and education in northern regions, were carried out before FieldEx. These include GlacioEx, which focused on glaciers (2012–2016), and RemoteEx (2017–2020), which focused on remote sensing of the cryosphere (permafrost, glaciers, snow and sea ice).
FieldEx is a collaboration between universities in Canada, the United States, Japan and Norway, including the Department of Geosciences at the University of Oslo and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
Read more about FieldEx:
FieldEX Field Instrumentation and Measurements in Cold Region Environments
See also the press release on regjeringen.no about the Norwegian state visit to Canada: Joint Statement - Canada and Norway
