As part of the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, Scholars from the Arctic Council’s eight member states will present their research and policy recommendations, capping two years of research and collaboration. 

On Tuesday, April 25, the scholars will share their research in a poster exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (from 2:00 – 4:00 pm, open to the public). On Thursday, April 27, the scholars will present their work to policymakers at a symposium at the Wilson Center. This event will be livestreamed online for public viewing. Members of the public can register for the livestream at the Wilson Center events page.

Launched in 2015, the Fulbright Arctic Initiative reinforces U.S. priorities by supporting international scientific cooperation on Arctic issues and increasing mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. As Arctic nations continue to take concrete steps to work together and address public-policy research questions relevant to shared challenges and opportunities, the Fulbright Arctic Initiative offers a collaborative model for scholarly exchange. The current group of nineteen scholars represent the eight countries that make up the Arctic Council: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States.

Østhagen focuses on geopolitics, security, and oceans in the Arctic and beyond. He was a Fulbright Arctic Initiative Scholar at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, and at the Polar Institute at the Wilson Center. His research project, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: 3 Levels of Arctic Geopolitics, explored the political dynamics that affect Arctic regional cooperation, ranging from cooperation on small-scale and de-politicized issues due to shared interests, to the complexities of foreign policy including homeland defense, military balancing, and strategic competition.

The author of Ocean Geopolitics and Coast Guards & Ocean Politics in the Arctic, Østhagen is a Senior Researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo, and he is affiliated with Nord University in the Norwegian Arctic as well as The Arctic Institute and the Wilson Center. He holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia and a MSc from the London School of Economics. 

The Fulbright Arctic Initiative is part of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program. Since 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 400,000 participants from more than 160 countries with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. The Fulbright Arctic Initiative sets out to forge lasting connections among the Arctic scholars and their nations.