Stefansson Arctic Institute

The Stefansson Arctic Institute (SAI), established in 1998 and located in Akureyri, Iceland, is an independent governmental research institute within the Icelandic Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources. It bears the name of arctic explorer and anthropologist Vilhjálmur Stefánsson (1879-1962).  

The SAI takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human-environment relations in the Circumpolar Arctic, with a particular emphasis on research and scientific assessments concerning economic systems and human development, marine-resource governance, political ecology of agricultural systems, and the impacts of and adaptation to past and present climate change.