Dr. Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen is Professor of Northern Studies and the inaugural Barents Chair in Politics at UiT-The Arctic University of Norway. He oversees CSCD’s global activities in collaboration with CSCD’s Global Consortium Affiliates.

Dr. Bertelsen’s research interest is transnational flows of knowledge, talent and resources between USA, Europe, Middle East, East Asia and the Arctic.

He studies the importance of elite socialization, epistemic communities and Science Diplomacy for adapting Arctic governance within changing global governance, brain circulation for human capital formation and transition from natural resources-based to knowledge-based economies in the Arctic and Gulf Cooperation Council states.

He is Danish and grew up in Reykjavik. From there he has a deep personal and professional commitment to the Arctic. He studied in Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Geneva, Lausanne and Amsterdam.

His Cambridge PhD (including a year at Sciences Po) analyzed British and French elite perceptions of the international system between 1880s and 1930s.

Dr. Bertelsen was postdoc at Harvard Kennedy School of Government on the soft power of American and French universities in the Middle East with field research in Lebanon, Egypt, UAE and Kuwait. At Harvard, Bertelsen started parallel Arctic research.

As JSPS postdoc he continued at United Nations University (Yokohama) and Tokyo Institute of Technology on Middle East, East Asia and Arctic research. He has now returned to Denmark to Aalborg University as postdoc and assistant professor researching Sino-Danish knowledge relations, especially in biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, and the Arctic before UiT. He directs a workpackage developing European Science Diplomacy theory and strategy in H2020 InsSciDE.