Rasmus Ole Rasmussen (Denmark) received his M.Sc. in 1973 as well as his Lic. Scient and PhD in Economic Geography from the University of Copenhagen in 1976. He has been tenured with Roskilde University in Denmark since 1974, and since 1991, he has served as Director of NORS – North Atlantic Regional Studies.
From 1987-1991 Dr. Rasmussen was working in Greenland for Greenland Home Rule Government in developing decentralized vocational training programs, and later on in connection with the establishing of Statistics Greenland. From 1994-1995, he was visiting professor at McGill University, a Fulbright associate at University of Alaska, Fairbanks from 1995-96, and Nordic visiting professor at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland from 1999-2002.
Since 2007, he has been a Senior Research Fellow at Nordregio – Nordic Centre for Spatial Development in Stockholm, Sweden, while focusing on Northern and Arctic social and economic issues. He was a referee on Arctic Council’s project: Arctic Human Development Report, and is presently a member of the follow-up working group on Arctic Social Indicators. Lastly, from 2009 to 2011, he will act as a scientific manager of the Nordic Council of Minister’s Arctic Research program.
A large extent of his career has been in relation to social and economic development in the Arctic. He has been publishing extensively on topics such as fisheries dependent communities in the Arctic, with a special focus on social and economic issues in relation to Greenland.