The Fridtjof Nansen Institute is named after the Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 polar

North Pole

The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...

 explorer Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...

 (1861-1930). It is housed in Polhøgda

Polhøgda

Polhøgda is a property between Lysaker and Fornebu in Bærum, Norway.-Use by Fridtjof Nansen:The property originally belonged to Fornebo farm, but was separated from the farm in 1897. Construction on the property took place in 1900 and 1901. It was the home of Fridtjof Nansen and Eva Nansen from...

, Nansen's mansion from 1901 to 1930.

The institute is an independent research foundation with a multi-disciplinary approach, engaged in research on international environmental

Natural environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

, energy

Energy

In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, and resource management

Resource management

In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective deployment of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or information technology...

politics. The main disciplines are political science and international law, but also geographers, historicists, economists, and anthropologists are part of the staff . The research centers around six focal points:

• Global governance and sustainable development
• Marine affairs and law of the sea
• Biodiversity and biosafety
• Polar and Russian politics
• European energy and environmental politics
• Chinese energy and environmental politics
  

The Fridtjof Nansen Institute groups as one of Norway's foreign politics research institutes.

The creation of the research institute

Fridtjof Nansen was a famous Norwegian polar explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Nansen lived at Polhøgda from its completion in 1901 until his death in 1930. His grave is in the garden in front of the manor. After his death the Nansen the property was donated to "interests that is close to Nansens life and doing". Scientific research was a natural choice. However there was to be some time before the foundation Polhøgda was to be realized. In 1948 formal statutes where adopted. In 1983 the name Fridtjof Nansen Institute was first used.