Creating better relations through mutual understanding, by seeking harmony in diversity
NEWDAY – the Nansen East West Dialogue Academy gathers university students from East-Asia and the Nordic region of Europe to engage in dialogue on current global challenges.
It is a training camp for cultural understanding and cross-cultural communication, with lectures, discussions, socializing, workshops and excursions. The social and academic climate offered at NEWDAY is creative, open-minded and challenging. Lillehammer and its natural surroundings are beautiful. The Nordic summer days are long, and even the nights are full of light.
The idea of a Dialogue Academy has grown out of the annual course Understanding Asia, presented at the Nansen Academy by Nordic and Asian scholars since 2014. In a fast-changing and increasingly multipolar world, there is an urgent need to understand and empathize with diverse societies and cultures. Relations between the five Nordic countries and the three North East Asian countries are long lasting and positive. Mutually we are rather similar, while in relation to each other the two regions are quite different. Alternative ideas and solutions can be discussed from our different positions and perspectives. Both regions have established institutional bodies that are mandated to promote cooperation and mutual understanding. The Nansen East-West Dialogue Academy project operates in line with this basic idea of promoting regional and cross-regional cooperation.
NEWDAY provides a platform for university students from the Nordic region and East Asia, to engage in dialogue on current global challenges, to learn from each other, and foster harmonious relations between prospective future leaders. The academy provides a unique opportunity to learn and debate about contemporary issues based on acquired knowledge of great Western and East Asian thinkers and humanitarians, presented by distinguished scholars from the Nordic region (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and leading universities in the East Asian region (China, Japan and Korea) as well as from the rest of Europe and the USA.
The NEWDAY project has been supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) and the East Asian Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS). Academically NIAS – The Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at University of Copenhagen, representing a consortium of 27 Nordic universities, has been the leading coordinating institution of the project, together with the Nansen Academy at Lillehammer, Norway. In East Asia, the project has been supported by scholars at Fudan University, University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University and Shandong University in China, by Kyoto university and Tokai university in Japan, and Yonsei University and Korea University in South Korea.
NEWDAY is organized by:
- Chunrong Liu, Fudan-European Centre for China Studies
- Daniel Bell, University of Hong Kong
- Geir Helgesen, Cross-Cultural Solutions
- Unn Irene Aasdalen, The Nansen Academy
Applications for NEWDAY 2024 will be received from 15th of January.
Download NEWDAY Application form here.
Print form, fill out, and send scanned form by e-mail to: unn.i.aasdalen@nansenskolen.no
Note:
– The applicants will be admitted from 15th of January and onwards, until the course is full
– There might be alterations to the course and the programme in the case of unexpected events or changing circumstances