Biography

Asle Toje (b. 1974) is the Deputy Leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee which is responsible for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is a scholar and an author who has lived and worked in Germany, France, Belgium, England, and the United States. He was educated at the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø and received his PhD from Cambridge University. He speaks English and Norwegian and dabbles in German and Spanish.

While at Cambridge, Toje worked on three main fields of study: international relations theory, war studies and European studies. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis, titled “American Influence on EU Security Policies,” under the supervision of Geoffrey Edwards.

Toje moved to New York City in 2005 to join the doctoral fellows program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. His academic tutors was Kenneth Waltz.  Toje was the Research Director at the Norwegian Nobel Institute from 2012-2018.

Toje is the Deputy Leader of the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee, a position he will hold until 2024. The Nobel committee selects the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, known as ‘the most prestigious award in the world’. Asle Toje lives in Oslo with his wife, Anne Kristine and their three children.

Public engagements

Toje lives in Norway but is a sought-after international speech holder and panelist. He is also a foreign policy analyst and adviser to several government agencies and non-government organizations.

He is a columnist in several Norwegian newspapers and frequently contributes commentary in the international media on foreign and security policy questions. 

Toje has given lectures at some of the world’s leading universities, he has also been enlisted as a speaker at venues ranging from the Raisina Dialogue to the Globesec and Valdai Conferences, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum and the Astana Club.