Press release: Project Combining Gwich’in Knowledge and Scientific Modelling Wins 2025 Frederik Paulsen Award

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award recognizes scientific and academic initiatives that are action-oriented and hold potential for addressing the challenges and critical needs posed by climate change. The prize comes with a 100,000-euro unrestricted grant intended to help develop the ideas through outreach, engagement, and communication.

The 2025 Award winning team consists of Sharon Snowshoe, Arlyn Charlie and Kristi Benson from Gwich’in Tribal Council, and Trevor Lantz and Tracey Proverbs from University of Victoria. Their project, Nan guk’anàatii ejuk t’igwinjik (The land we are taking care of is changing), brings together Gwich’in knowledge and scientific modelling to assess the impacts of climate change and industrial development on culturally important landscapes in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Building on over three decades of cultural documentation by the Gwich’in Tribal Council’s Department of Culture and Heritage and twelve years of collaboration with the Arctic Landscape Ecology Lab at University of Victoria, the project will classify Gwich’in landscapes through Gwich’in knowledge and language, and model future disturbances to evaluate their impacts on key harvesting areas and wildlife species. This work will support Indigenous-led land use planning, cultural protection, and climate adaptation, and will provide a transferable model for combining Indigenous and scientific knowledge systems across the Arctic.

“Winning the Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award will allow us to expand our work with collaborators at the University of Victoria and enhance our capacity to adapt and plan for a changing climate. It will fund community and academic research that brings together Gwich’in knowledge of our lands and geospatial research on climate impacts, helping to develop Gwich’in-centred projections of change,” the team says.

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award is a collaboration between Arctic Circle and UArctic. To learn more, visit www.uarctic.org/actionaward.

The Frederik Paulsen Arctic Academic Action Award provides high-level recognition for innovative ideas that transform knowledge into action to help address the impacts of climate change in the Arctic. The prize comes with a 100,000 euro unrestricted grant that is intended to help develop the ideas through outreach, engagement, and communication. The award is named after Dr Frederik Paulsen who has been a prominent supporter of scientific research and collaboration in the polar regions for decades.

Arctic Circle is the largest network of international dialogue and cooperation on the future of the Arctic and our planet. It is an open democratic platform with participation from governments, organizations, corporations, universities, think tanks, environmental associations, Indigenous communities, concerned citizens, and others. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan.

UArctic is a network of over 200 universities, colleges, research institutes, and other organizations concerned with education and research in and about the Arctic. UArctic builds and strengthens collective resources and infrastructures that enable member institutions to better serve their constituents and their regions. Through cooperation in education, research, and outreach UArctic enhances human capacity in the North, promotes viable communities and sustainable economies, and forges global partnerships.

Media queries

Arctic Circle:

Matthildur María Rafnsdóttir matthildur@arcticcircle.org 

UArctic:

International Secretariat secretariat@uarctic.org