Yvon Csonka, December 2004
Planning of Greenlandic participation in the fourth International Polar Year
(IPY-4) 2007-08 through participation in international social scientific IPY panel at ICASS in Fairbanks
A panel on the planning of social science projects for the upcoming IPY had been convened at the Fifth International Conference on Arctic Social Sciences (ICASS V, May 2004), to which I had been invited to present Greenlandic plans for human and social scientific research. Participation in this panel was a first step in the creation of networks setting up and coordinating research activities in 2007-08. Research plans were being developed under the overarching theme “Man, Nature, and Arctic Societies” identified by the Greenlandic IPY committee: “Dynamic Greenland - Facing Challenges in a Changing Environment”, and the sub-theme “Survival Strategies Past and Present”, to which Ilisimatusarfik and other Greenlandic research institutions will be associated.
The assembly was quite impressed by the developments in Greenland: Greenland had set up its own IPY Committee, which was later recognized by the official Danish IPY Committee, and it had so far made the most numerous proposals in social science research. The following day, participants in the panel proposed that the association organizing the conference, IASSA, endorse a resolution, to be sent to the IPY organizing body nominated by ICSU, calling for the inclusion of specific social scientific programs. The resolution was well received, and a specific social scientific theme is currently included in the IPY planning.