What can cooperation do for the Arctic? Exhibition booklet

Projects Booklet What can cooperation do for the Arctic?

Exhibition – 18th EU Regions Week 12>16 October 2020

WHAT CAN COOPERATION PROGRAMMES DO FOR THE ARCTIC?

In recent years, the Arctic region has received a growing attention from policy makers and investors. Because of the wide range of local, regional and international actors and the speed of the developments, a need for a more coordinated regional development has become clear.

In April 2016 the European Commission and the EU High Representative released a Joint Communication about A new integrated EU policy for the Arctic. In this document the European Cooperation programmes operating within the Arctic were encouraged and mandated to strengthen collaboration, synergies and complementarity.

In response to both, a rapidly changing environment and an institutional mandate, the five programmes operating in the Arctic – Northern Periphery and Arctic, Nord, Botnia-Atlantica, Karelia CBC and Kolarctic CBC – have decided to work more closely together.

Common Arctic themes were identified, based on shared values supporting the sustainable use of resources in the Arctic, the development of an Arctic entrepreneurial spirit, the utilisation of cold climate opportunities, and the pooling of resources to overcome critical mass. In the following pages you can see examples of projects working in each of these themes.

Although each programme maintains its specific approach, ultimately this collaborative network’s purpose is to support projects that benefit the people who actually live in the Arctic.

This booklet is a collection of the project posters exhibited at the occasion of the first "Arctic Cooperation Conference – What can Cooperation Programmes do for the Arctic?" which took place on 18th September 2019 in Copenhagen.

The conference was jointly organized by the five programmes operating in the Arctic – Interreg BotniaAtlantica, Interreg Nord, Kolarctic CBC, Karelia CBC and the Northern Periphery and Arctic. As the Arctic region has received a growing attention from policy makers and investors, the Conference highlighted the need for a more coordinated regional development and presented the results of cooperation between five Arctic programmes.

The exhibition showed examples of how cooperation programmes have supported the Arctic in the four areas of Arctic Entrepreneurial Spirit, Overcoming critical mass, Cold Climate opportunities, and Sustainable use of resources.

How Arctic Cooperation programmes contribute to the sustainable use of resources The Northern Periphery and Arctic programme supports projects that engage communities in ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change and prepare them for a responsible handling of mega-investments.

Projects focused on sustainable environmental management allow communities to protect their natural and cultural assets.

Additionally, the programme supports projects increasing awareness and readiness to invest in energy efficiency measures and renewable energy solutions within the housing sector and public infrastructures.

The Nord programme supports projects in the energy and environmental technology area, which has a high potential within the Nord programme area, not least due to the availability of hydroelectric power, wind power and forestry.

In addition, the environmental technology sector is extensive in the programme area and includes everything from biomass and waste technologies to recycling.

One of the fields is the development of renewable energy sources, primarily through investments in bio-energy.

An increased use of renewable energy, and reduced environment-related pressures, are also important for a green development in maritime locations.

Efforts promoting efficient energy consumption and energy supply are essential for an increased regional competitiveness.

Apart from supporting innovative projects that for example work with refinement of forestry resources or biodegradable plastics, the Interreg Botnia-Atlantica programme also supports sustainable development of natural heritage.

The programme area contains one of the few cross-border world heritage sites in the world, the High coast/Kvarken Archipelago.

Karelia CBC Programme supports projects which develop innovative ways to use local resources in a sustainable way.

Recycling and waste management are a topical issue in the programme, as well as environmental education of the youngsters.

The Kolarctic CBC focuses on projects which improve the possibilities to reduce the impacts of environmental hazards.

How Arctic Cooperation programmes contribute to stimulate an Arctic Entrepreneurial Spirit The Northern Periphery and Arctic programme facilitates the transfer and development of business support strategies to overcome the challenges faced by start-ups and existing SMEs in remote areas.

Additionally, it supports pooling resources across regions to develop marketing concepts and models to better access key markets and reach a wider customer base.

Given the abundant natural resources and cultural heritage in the Arctic, awareness and sensitivity towards them are keystones for a sustainable business development.

The nature, culture, and history of the Interreg Nord/Sรกpmi area, along with good infrastructure, Arctic conditions, security and stability, provide excellent opportunities to create high quality products and experiences.

The combination of new technology, information and communication technology, as well as research and innovation, promote new business concepts, provides excellent opportunities for the cultural and creative industries to be competitive in an international perspective.

Interreg Botnia-Atlantica aims at increasing the competitiveness in already established businesses as well as in new businesses through more developed cross-border cooperation.

Environmental technology, food, tourism and gaming industry are examples on branches that the programme supports.

The Karelia CBC programme finances projects that commercialise local cultural heritage – special attention is paid both on ensuring versatile cultural services for the local habitants, and utilising the local cultural heritage in tourism.

The Kolarctic CBC programme supports projects that promote entrepreneurial competence and a viable and sustainable utilisation of the opportunities in the Arctic.

How Arctic Cooperation programmes help seizing cold climate opportunities Solutions supporting informed and nature-aware risk prevention and preparedness measures are a key component in response to managing increasing levels of hazards in the Arctic.

The Northern Periphery and Arctic programme encourages pooling of competences across regions and upskilling of local authorities to better cope with oil spill recovery and other environmental threats in the Arctic.

Interreg Nord programme supports cold climate testing activities, an area with growth potential, in which the region’s natural and Arctic conditions, combined with a high level of skills and technology constitutes competitive advantages that form the basis for many business ideas that are based on location-bound resources, cold climate and Arctic conditions.

Interreg Botnia-Atlantica Programme supports projects working with for example wind power, environmental techniques, building construction, and how these various fields of expertise are affected by the cold climate.

In the Kolarctic CBC region, organisations are specialized in overcoming the challenges caused by long distances and cold climate cause, for example, concerning transport.

How Arctic Cooperation programmes help overcoming critical mass

Cooperation within the Northern Periphery and Arctic programme proved to be an effective solution for developing and testing distant public service provision, especially in the area of remote care and assistance to elderly and young people living in remote areas.

Besides allowing people to receive care in their own environment, testing of different distance-spanning technologies across the NPA area allowed for fast learning between organisations and a quicker uptake of IT-based solutions.

The Interreg Nord programme encourages and supports cooperation between universities, industry, SMEs and the public sector to stimulate innovation, development of ideas, intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship to create opportunities in the sparsely populated programme area.

The Nord programme focuses on; Business development in Sรกpmi, Collaboration between primary industries and SMEs, Testing, Service businesses in the service sector, Cultural and creative industries, Digital service industries, Energy and environmental technology/Clean Tech

As a cooperation-programme, Interreg Botnia-Atlantica offers companies a larger critical mass by working crossborder, than each region can offer alone.

This creates opportunities for different types of businesses as for example cleantech, to develop in a larger context.

Another goal for the programme is creating cross-border competence centres, where academia works together with businesses and public institutions in different fields.

In order to facilitate the cooperation cross border, BotniaAtlantica also supports the work with planning transportation links across Kvarken, which is of big importance for the whole programme area.

The Karelia CBC Programme pays special attention on projects developing match making and clustering of local SMEs.

Sparse population means sparse productive enterprises.

Collaboration between these enterprises gives a possibility to overcome the challenge of small production volumes.

The Kolarctic CBC programme supports projects which enhance this cooperation between small enterprises.