Per Johan Brandvik has enjoyed a five years leave of absence from SINTEF to serve as Associate Professor of Environmental Technology at the University Centre on Svalbard (UNIS), a state-owned limited company. Norway’s four mainland universities are represented on the board. The objectives of UNIS are to provide university level education in Arctic studies, to carry out high quality research, and to contribute to the development of Svalbard as an international research platform. The archipelago’s geographical location in the High Arctic makes it an ideal venue for laboratory work and also for the acquisition and analysis of specialist data.

Professor Brandvik organizes a spring semester course called Fate and Modelling of Pollutants in the Arctic, wherein the SINTEF oil spill contingency and response model OSCAR plays a central role. May Kristin Ditlevsen and Mark Reed have taught this one-week course for the past four years. The course combines theoretical background with practical exercises in the computer laboratory at UNIS. The Arctic Pollution course entails a final project by each student, many of whom choose to build their projects around the OSCAR model. For more information about UNIS: http://www.unis.no/
For more information about SINTEF models: http://www.sintef.no/units/chem/environment/

Contact at SINTEF Materials and Chemistry: Mark Reed