Announcing the CAS projects 2024/2025

Each year, CAS hosts three interdisciplinary research groups working within the fields of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The groups comprise leading academics from around the world and are led by eminent scholars affiliated with CAS' partner institutions in Norway. The project leaders will spend a whole academic year with their handpicked dream team, uninterrupted by teaching and most administrative tasks.

The applicants submitted their project proposals last fall. Following a rigorous evaluation process, which included an international peer review, the Board of Directors recently selected the following three projects, which will be hosted by the Centre during the 2024/2025 academic year:

Climate, Crops, and Crisis?: Examining Agricultural Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change in Prehistory

Associate professor Rosemary Rhiannon Bishop from the University of Stavanger will lead an interdisciplinary exploration to determine the resilience of prehistoric farmers in the face of climate deterioration. By examining the archaeological record, the team will identify agricultural adaptation, resilience, and vulnerability to climate change during the 4th to 1st millennium BC. The study will specifically focus on two contrasting cultural and agricultural histories in Northern Scotland and Southern Norway, which share similar climatic conditions. By integrating data from various disciplines, this project will provide a sophisticated understanding of human-climate interactions in the past. The results are expected to have broader implications beyond archaeology, offering valuable insights into human adaptations to climate change.

The Nordic Little Ice Age (1300-1900): Lessons From Past Climate Change (NORLIA)

Led by professor Dominik Collet from the University of Oslo, the NORLIA project aims to examine the impact of the Little Ice Age (1300-1900) on Nordic societies. This interdisciplinary endeavor will investigate the intricate interplay between natural and social environments during this period of rapid climate change. By employing a novel 'socionatural' approach that connects climatology, history, and climate communication, the project seeks to address fundamental questions about how people adapted to challenges that bear resemblance to the ones we face today. By studying historical responses to climate change, the NORLIA project intends to provide valuable insights into navigating the current climate crisis.

Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Investors in Overlapping Generations

Under the leadership of Paul Ehling from the BI Norwegian Business School, the project Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Investors in Overlapping Generations aims to quantitatively understand the impact of heterogeneity on financial assets. By exploring the differences in portfolio holdings, trading volume, cross-sectional consumption and wealth distribution, as well as the volatility of asset returns, this project seeks to shed light on the role of heterogeneity in financial markets. The project encompasses two main components: developing efficient methods for solving large-scale equilibrium models with heterogeneity in disagreement, risk aversion, and time preference, and estimating equilibrium models with disagreement using survey data to understand the impact of disagreement on stock and bond markets.

We congratulate the 2024/2025 project leaders and extend our gratitude to all the scholars who submitted proposals. 

The call for applications for the 2025/2026 academic year will be announced shortly. Read more about the application process here >