The Greenhouse was established as a research group in 2017 and quickly distinguished itself worldwide as a leading professional environment for environmental humanities. On its fifth anniversary, The Greenhouse is moving on, now as a research centre at UiS.
The Greenhouse was established as a research group in 2017 and quickly distinguished itself worldwide as a leading professional environment for environmental humanities. On its fifth anniversary, The Greenhouse is moving on, now as a research centre at UiS.
– By establishing The Greenhouse as a research centre, the university demonstrates its understanding that the humanities can contribute both values and value creation through a basic way of thinking. It also shows an understanding that green transition is not a final destination, but an ongoing process of change, says Dolly Jørgensen.
The establishment of The Greenhouse as a research centre is a significant contribution to realizing the ambitions of both UiS and the Faculty of Education and Humanities, particularly with regard to green transition.
– Joy and congratulations are my immediate responses to yet another confirmation of the good development of The Greenhouse. This highly competent research environment is an excellent example of how our strategic ambition for a green transition can be broadly embraced, across faculties and professional environments, says Klaus Mohn, rector at UiS.
At the crossroads between nature, technology and social structures
The researchers associated with The Greenhouse interrogate various questions about the interaction between nature and technology, and the research in The Greenhouse is similarly placed at this intersection between nature, technology and social structures and uses several disciplines to cultivate new professional and social connections with nature.
– We quickly discovered when we came to UiS in 2017 that many people were working on issues within the environmental humanities. Surprisingly many, says Finn Arne Jørgensen.
The centre aims to support a growing group of academics who use history, literature, media, religion, philosophy and art to understand how people relate to nature and the environment. As an intellectual meeting place, The Greenhouse wants to build connections between academics, museums, interest groups and the public interested in environmental issues.
Since the research group's inception in 2017, The Greenhouse has offered a way to bring people together, aiming to achieve something more than what they can do individually.
– I think we have succeeded. Many people want to contribute their research to The Greenhouse, says Finn Arne Jørgensen.
Great importance for further work
– The Greenhouse already has significant status within its field, and as a centre, we will continue on the path we have already started. In a way, it is simply about continuing the work we have started, and that we have now formalized the way of working we have built up. As a research centre, international dialogue and collaboration become less complicated, and we will be more clearly part of an international research environment, says Dolly Jørgensen.
She emphasizes that gaining centre status has far-reaching significance when it comes to being able to attract research projects and professional talent. The two centre managers are happy that the establishment of a research centre that works with issues within the environmental humanities has been added to UiS. Non-traditional perspective on highly topical societal challenges
– We see that UiS is a microcosm, it includes contradictions. Carrying out environmental humanities research when we have the legacy of being an 'oil university' makes it incredibly interesting to explore the questions we work on within the environmental humanities precisely from here, says Finn Arne Jørgensen.
Klaus Mohn follows up on this:
– The Greenhouse offers a non-traditional perspective on highly topical societal challenges. This provides valuable contributions to the diversity of knowledge we need to improve our understanding of the world around us.
– The challenges we face as a society are great. We need the humanistic aspect in place, we need to understand why we have arrived where we have, and how we can move forward. Now that The Greenhouse has become a research centre at UiS, it shows an understanding that humanistic research can contribute both values and value creation through a basic way of thinking. It also shows an understanding that green transition is not a final destination, but a process of change, says Dolly Jørgensen.
Text: Kristin Vestrheim Cranner. Photo: Elisabeth Tønnessen.
More from The Greenhouse
Greenhouse publications
Get an overview of The Greenhouse Centre's recent publications, articles and released books.
The Osage, Automobility, and the Environment in Sundown (1934)
UiS post-doctoral researcher Daniel Bowman writes about John Joseph Mathews’s 1934-novel Sundown, and the use of automob...
The Greenhouse Centre’s permafrost expert invited to ‘first of its kind’ workshop in Paris
Charlotte Wrigley attends 'Thinking Through Permafrost' workshop.
Animesh Chatterjee brings the Greenhouse and ICOHTEC in dialogue
Chatterjee elected on the Executive Committee of the International Committee for the History of Technology.
The Mongoose on the Loose in Nineteenth-Century Jamaica
"A plague of weasels and ticks: animal introduction, ecological disaster, and the balance of nature in Jamaica, 1870–190...
The impermanence of permafrost: learning how to be discontinuous
"Earth Ice Bone Blood" by Charlotte Wrigley.
Researching the unnoticed connections between petroculture and cultural heritage
Professor Dolly Jørgensen has won funding to research the links between cultural heritage and petrocultures and their co...
The Greenhouse Green Transitions Fellows Blog
Reflections from the Green Transitions Fellows at The Greenhouse 2022
Greenhouse Green Transitions Fellows 2022
In the fall of 2022, University of Stavanger welcomed 12 guest researchers and artists from across the world to engage w...
About The Greenhouse
The Greenhouse Centre for Environmental Humanities is a research centre at University of Stavanger, Norway. Get to know ...
The Greenhouse: Current Research Projects
Find information about our current research projects and research networks.
AtHOME: Histories of animals, technological infrastructure, and making more-than-human homes in the modern age
How can we understand animals as being at home with human-built infrastructure?
Nuclear Nordics
Radioactive Waste Spatialities, Materialities and Societies in the Nordic Region, 1960s to 1990s
The Norwegian Researcher School in Environmental Humanities (NoRS-EH)
NoRS-EH is an interdisciplinary initiative that aims to reinforce and strengthen the contribution of Norwegian humaniti...