Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration

Abstract

The Barents Institute of the University of Tromsø and the Centre for North European and Baltic Studies of the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations (MGIMO) jointly launched, in 2011, the so-called Futures of Northern Cross-Border Collaboration Project. It brought together academic researchers and public and business managers with different specialities into a multidisciplinary network. This publication is a selection of the presentations held by the group at a round-table organised at MGIMO in 2011. In the first part of the book the “New North” is discussed, i.e. the new geopolitical power-field that has resulted from Arctic melting. The latter causes many environmental problems but on the bright side of things, at sea, diminishing ice opens new routes in the Arctic Ocean that will be important to international shipping. This also facilitates access to off-shore fossil fuel extraction on the large continental shelves of the circumpolar North. The second section of this book discusses the various challenges that are now urgent to address. Sound stewardship and sustainable economic growth can only be based on proactive development of knowledge through research, by continuing the successes of cultural and professional partnerships in the European north and by expanding the scopes and availability of cross-border programmes in higher education.