The 2019 Norwegian Research School in Renewable Energy (NorRen) took place at Leangkollen in Asker from 17th to 21st of June. The summer school was organized by UiO:Energy in collaboration with the two Norweigan centres for environment-friendly energy research (FME centres) MoZEES and Bio4Fuels. The program was designed to be both interdisciplinary and interactive, with a mixture of expert talks, lectures and group work focusing on various aspects of sustainable transport.
The school gathered PhD students from UiO, NTNU, NMBU and USN for a week-long program. We had lectures on biofuels, hydrogen and batteries - for road, rail and sea. The school also covered political, social and economic aspects of the transitions in the transport sector. These scientific topics where presented by a mix of lecturers from UiO, NTNU, NMBU, Technical University of Munich, IFE, TØI and SINTEF.
Involvement of stakeholders
Both private companies and the government sector were also invited to share their views on sustainable transport - and to highlight both possibilities and challenges. Wilhelmsen/Massterly, Acando, IKEA and the Norwegian Railway Directorate gave very interesting and inspiring lectures from different sectors ranging from transport of goods to Mobility as a Service, and from autonomous solutions to new fuel alternatives for sustainable shipping.
In the middle of the week, Unibuss, a public transport operator in Oslo, organized a site visit to their new infrastructure facilities at Alnabru, Mortensrud and Klemetsrud, Unibuss also presented key learnings from the electrification of their bus fleet.
An engaging approach
The students themselves played a central role throughout the week. On the first day they each presented their PhD research with a poster and a short pitch, effectively getting to know all the other participants. During the week they worked in groups on an interdisciplinary assignment, and presented their findings on the last day of the school. There were also lots of questions and discussions in conjunction with the various talks, making it a highly interactive experience.
Long days were rounded off with social dinners and quite a few rounds of playing shuffleboard. The students were really enthusiastic, putting a lot of effort and energy into the whole week. Based on the evaluation, the participants very much enjoyed the summer school, in particular valuing the possibility to meet and work with young researchers from other disciplines - all having a common interest in sustainable transport.
UiO:Energy would like to thank all lecturers and students for making the NorRen summer school of 2019 an interesting and highly enjoyable week!
For a detailed program of the summer school see the NorRen webpage. In 2020 the NorRen summer school will most likely once again focus on sustainable energy systems.