Two years with Covid-19 have taught us all a lot about exponential curves, and now as the pandemic turns into an endemic, Nansen Legacy produces figures with a near exponential growth (see below). The reasons for it however everything but sorrowful! After a bit more than four years into the project, Nansen Legacy researchers are eagerly publishing their work and the project has now passed the magical number of 100 publications.

Total number of publications in the Nansen Legacy
Congratulation to all our smart and hard-working colleagues. What did they actually write about? And did Nansen Legacy researchers produce their studies alone or together with national or international colleagues?
Let’s have a closer look!
The 103 Nansen Legacy publications have been published in 54 different journals. These journals cover a wide range from specialized fields such as “Cold Regions Science and Technology”, “Quaternary Geochronology” or the “Data Science Journal” to some high-ranking journals under in the Nature and Science umbrella. So far, the Open Access journal Frontiers of Marine Science (14 publications) as well as the two journals “Geophysical Research Letters” and “Geophysical Research Journal: Ocean” (9 publications each) are the most popular channels to communicate new findings to the scientific community. Furthermore, several studies were published in ICES Journal of Marine Sciences, a journal reaching out especially to communities with focus on management, conservation, and human impact on ecosystems.
The wide range of the journals used, also reflects the width of topics covered by scientists in the Nansen Legacy. A word cloud produced from all article titles however clearly identifies the connecting topics (see figure below). Many observational and modelling studies focus on the physical and chemical oceanography, sea ice dynamics, marine ecology, and ecotoxicology in the Nansen Legacy focus area, the northern Barents Sea, and contribute to the knowledge base for future sustainable management of activities in the region. In addition, Nansen Legacy scientists have published various advances in the use of underwater or air-borne technology and their use in marine sciences. Studies on geological topics as well as new findings in the field of data management are less common, but they provide important complementary findings in the project.

Word cloud of the titles of the so far 103 Nansen Legacy publications
Around 43 % of the 105 articles were published in open access journals, but actually awesome 83 % of the articles are available as open access publications. This means that everybody can access the scientific work online, and we are proud that a big national project as Nansen Legacy leads the way to this new way of thinking in science and shares scientific results openly.
Finally, let’s have a look how Nansen Legacy researchers work. Very rarely they seem to sit alone and work on their studies, as only 4 % of the articles were written by a single author. Most of the articles (60 %) were a cooperation between two or more Nansen Legacy consortium partners, and 24 % of the studies were conducted together with national colleagues outside the consortium (e.g., with NORCE, SINTEF). Moreover, most of the publications (58 %) were conducted in collaborations with international colleagues from 24 different countries (among others Germany, USA, UK, Canada).
Are you interested in learning more? Please find the complete list of all Nansen Legacy publications here