All eyes on Greenland

was the motto of the Greenland Science Conference 2025, which takes place every two years in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. This conference was part of Greenland Science Week, which offered an extensive program of events from November 7 to 14, 2025.

Our GreenHAB project, represented by Maurits Halbach and Jan Freund, was actively involved in various events: the Greenland Marine Research Seminar on November 11, 2025, the Greenland Science Conference from November 12 to 13, 2025, and Qaagitsi, a public science event on November 14, 2025. There, the project goals and initial results were presented to a broad audience at a booth. We took advantage of this opportunity to ask locals who had traveled from different parts of Greenland about their experiences with the potential effects of harmful algal blooms (HABs) on marine fauna as a food source. The responses indicate that no significant HAB events have been recorded in Greenland to date. However, an Icelandic interviewee reported sporadic HAB events on Iceland’s west coast, which led to the introduction of a monitoring system there. Due to the transport of algae caused by ocean currents, this information is also relevant for the southwestern coastal regions of Greenland.

In addition to the scientific contributions, the Greenland Science Conference 2025 also featured numerous presentations from a broad interdisciplinary spectrum. These provided exciting insights into the history and sociocultural development of Greenland and its population, while also highlighting the tensions that arose from the historically conditioned relationship between the indigenous population and European and North American influences. Today, Kalaallit Nunaat (Inuit Nunaat) faces the challenge of preserving its cultural identity and autonomy while at the same time creating a sustainable economic basis without losing sight of ecological aspects and global political interests.

Greenland Science Week 2025 was not only highly informative, but also showed that, in addition to the official conference motto “All eyes on Greenland” the recommendation formulated by many local participants “All ears on Greenland” is at least as important.