Christian Webersik

My current research focuses on peace and security studies with a focus on crisis management and security implications of climate change. Moreover, I am interested in the role of technology, largely mobile communication, in disasters. For example, crisis mapping in conflict-affected countries can help to better understand where humanitarian assistance is needed most. Or, social media can be used to better prepare the local population for any kind of disaster. Another area of interest is disaster diplomacy, where disasters can lead to cooperation between hostile states. 

• Crisis Management 
• Peace and Conflict
• Disaster Diplomacy
• Climate Change
• Migration

ME-413 Research methods in development and planning studies
UT-504 Cross-cutting issues in development and crisis management
ME-521 Field course and master thesis seminar
UT-404 Current development issues: poverty, inequality and power
 

Current

2017 – date Deputy Director, Centre for Integrated Emergency Management (CIEM), Norway

2016 – date Professor, Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder/ Norway

Previous

 2018 – 2019 Guest Scientist, Disaster Research Unit (DRU), Freie Universität Berlin/ Germany

2009 – 2016 Associate Professor, Department of Global Development and Planning, University of Agder/ Norway

2015 Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, University of Hamburg/ Germany 

2014 – 2015 Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley/ USA facilitated by the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study.

2011 Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in the City of New York hosted by the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

2007 – 2009 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science United Nations University (JSPS-UNU) Postdoctoral Fellow at United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan. During my tenure, my Japanese host was the Department for Value and Decision Science at the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TITech).

2005  – 2007 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University in the City of New York. I was hosted by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), a research unit specialising in data mapping and management.

2004  – 2005 Assistant Professor of political science at the University of Asmara, College of Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, Asmara, Eritrea.

Crisis Management

Research Methods in Social Sciences

E-teaching

Projects focus on climate change and migration, climate change and security, information technology and disasters, and on environmental peacebuilding:

• Disaster Diplomacy in the High North and Arctic, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, 2018-2020
• Political economy analysis for Somalia commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, funded by NUPI (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs) and commissioned by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2016-2018, Role: Project manager 
• Norwegian Research Council project 217188 on perceptions and understandings of climate change and migration: Conceptualising and contextualising for Lakshadweep and the Maldives, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, 2013-2015, Role: Project manager 
• United States National Science Foundation grant 0624167, Collaborative Research: Hydrology and Social Interactions: A Focus on Conflict in Africa, led by Marc Levy (PI), funded by the United States National Science Foundation