Today we received some great news. The Swedish Academy (Svenska akademin) has confirmed they offer the Nordic Summer University (NSU) a grant for the year 2022.

This grant will cover some of the costs towards the activities of the Nordic Summer University: the winter symposia and the summer session that combines several symposia. It will mostly go to the grant and scholarship program that is a core element of NSU: to realize our goal of making sure people with less economic means can also attend our activities. Another part is reserved for a special Baltic and West-Nordic travel program, to support people traveling from those areas to the NSU summer session.

After nearly two years of functioning completely online due to the pandemic, and after one year of having no external funding, as our previous funder canceled our long-term connection, this is most welcome news.

The Nordic Summer University is a voluntary organisation that organises around study circles. Presently there are nine study circle, and each study circle organises symposia for three years, around one specific topic – from Nordic Environmental Ethics to Bildung in Times of the Anthropocene, from Artistic Research to Feminist Philosophy and many other. This new grant from the Swedish Academy will enable us to invite new study circles to apply for funding.

This includes joining the NSU network right now by organizing a one-year program that would include a winter symposium and a symposium during the NSU Summer Session 2022. Information about application for new one-year (ad hoc) circle proposals will be sent out shortly. Please sign up for the NSU Newsletter to get the information as it becomes available.

In the meantime October 2021 is coming to an end, which means also the end of the 2021 October ‘Summer’ Session is coming to an end. There were many successful symposia, mostly online, for one or more days this month. Join us for the second meeting of the General Assembly still coming up this Saturday 30 October.