About Foundation Nordic Summer University – Foundation Nordic Summer University

Foundation Nordic Summer University – Insamlingsstiftelsen Nordiskt sommaruniversitet – is dedicated to converting Nordic Summer Uuniversity into a financially independent institution for research innovation and civil education.

We draw on a legacy of 75 years of international collaboration in the Nordics, Baltics and Arctic.

We have:

– a proven work process based on democratic principles and cross-sectoral collaboration between research, artists and civil society.

– an established track-record of multidisciplinary innovation.

– a recognized role as a knowledge base for collegial democracy in a broader European perspective.

– we are a prevailing career path for young academics in the Nordics and Baltics.

With Foundation Nordic Summer university we take our concept a step further. Our aim is to create a self-standing foundation that provides an independent space for research innovation during the next 75 years (at least).

Research initiating role

Since its inception in the 1950’s Nordic summer university has played a determining role for the establishment of new research fields in the Nordics. Over the long-term, NSU’s unique organization has proved to be a successful model for developing new ideas and turning them into advanced disciplines. Just to mention a few examples, NSU was the host of a number of multidisciplinary environmental meetings in the 1950s and can be seen as the instigator of the early environmental movement in the Nordic countries. Human ecology was also present as a topic in NSU well before it became a recognized discipline in the Nordic universities in the 1970s. Peace- and conflict studies was founded in a study circle in NSU in the 1960s, and feminist research, as well as later artistic research were given spaces in NSU long before they became recognized as discipline. Likewise, securitization studies were developed within a study circle in NSU in the 1980s.

We develop new research and civic resilience in the Nordics and Baltics.

NSU has a unique model for research innovation.

What we do different:

-We organize a study program based on ten three-year study-circles each year. The three-year cycle provides plenty of room for concept development, speculation and scientific debate.

– Each study circle is required to have participants from at least three Nordic or Baltic countries.

– Each study circle has to have participants from several disciplines and from civil society.

– Applying for a study circle is open to everyone in a process where applications are worked on together in community review and voted on by our General Assembly.

– We do not require short term out-put. We ask for innovative ideas, experimental designs, contributions to civil society and the probability of long-term contributions to research.

– We do not count articles but ask for new ways of resolving social challenges, attempts to identifyformulate societal challenges offor the future, re-takes on fundamental issues in ground-level research, and research on issues that are not yet developed enough to be given regular research funding.

– Outputs can be everything from new methods, through concerts or open lectures, exhibitions, research databases, handbooks or policy recommendations, as well as Nordic research networks and regular research applications.

Multi-disciplinary Nordic-Baltic collaborations

Based on our track-record of research innovation, we know that interdisciplinarity is crucial for the formulation of new questions and solving old problems.

What we do differently:

– With us, multidisciplinarity is a tool in the beginning of the innovation process. With our three-year cycle each study circle provides a testing space where researchers and artists can come back and test ideas developed in a discipline specific setting.

– We take a broad approach to multi-disciplinarity, including collaborations with artists and actors from civil society.

– Multidisciplinarity works best when it produces ideas, these can then be adapted and used within specific fields.

– We work with multi-disciplinarity on problems where the researchers themselves are asking for it.

Civic education and civic resilience

What we do differently:

-NSU relies on voluntary work, and organizes participants from a range of sectors in society. Participants are students, folk high school teachers, early career researchers, full professors, emeritus professors, PhDs, museum educators, artists, musicians, politicians, journalists, designers and representatives of other NGOs. In NSU everyone can vote on research, run a project and contribute to the organization.

– All of our events are hosted in different parts of the Nordics and Baltics – around 20 events every year – and we always engage with the local contextsociety. Our activities haves a unique reach in the Nordic and Baltic region.

– We only accept projects that are cross-sectorial and that aim to collaborate with actors outside of academia.

-We have a scholarship program supporting participants who could otherwise not attend.

– In summer, we run a children’s circle aimed at fostering scientific interests in children and youths.

Nordic Summer university has also provided a space for politicians, authors, museum educators, folk highschool teachers and other civic actors to engage with the development of new research. This has promoted civic collaboration in the Nordics and Baltics and NSU has established a strong and credible connection between research activity and its real-world application in the larger society. NSU is and has been an important player in strengthening civic resilience against misinformation in the Nordics and Baltics. We provide open channels between civic education and research, with mutually beneficial circulation of ideas and knowledge. In an increasingly hostile climate, we are a key actor in protecting Nordic and Baltic academic freedom and civic resilience. We protect the right to free and self-organized inquiry, as well as civil society’s right to well-founded scientific knowledge.

Peer democracy

Since the 1950s NSU has upheld democratic values and practices. In the present we function as a knowledge hub and model for peer democracy in Europe. Each year we have participants who join our activities in order to learn from our organization and bring it back to their home countries. We believe in peer-democracy, and our entire organization is built on voluntary work.

What we do differently:

-Each summer all ten study-circles meet in the summer session, where the highest deciding organ also meets, the NSU General Assembly.

-Each participant has voting rights, and we vote on everything from budget to study program.

-We organize a community review process where all participants are welcome to take part in developing new project proposals.

-We organize regional meetings in summer, where participants in different circles can speak about regional issues.

– No volunteers receive a salary, which means that everyone who participates do so driven by a strong scientific or artistic passion. Research and artistic practices are developed for their own sake and without political or business pressure.

– The study-circles are run by coordinators who have a large degree of freedom to organize their own events, all of which ambulate between different Nordic and Baltic locations.

– We have a long history of collaborating with exiled researchers from eastern Europe. In the early 1980s they came from the Soviet Union, today they come from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.