Languages

East Meets North - rethinking economic and academic cooperation

In economic thinking, especially among politicians and researchers, there is a tendency to concentrate on a particular geographic area.
Location
In economic thinking, especially among politicians and researchers, there is a tendency to concentrate on a particular geographic area. Local stakeholders and organisations tend to look at matters on the basis of vested interests, grounded upon more or less immediate profits and benefits that they might gain on a local basis. It occurs pretty seldom that those actors are able to see beyond the horizon and take geographically unconventional perspectives.
 
In Northern Karelia, the eastern-most corner of Finland, there is much hype about benefiting business ties and trade with Russia. More specifically, local people have ties with businesses located in the Republic of Karelia and St. Peterburg area in their mind. From their perspective, such highly potential regions of cooperation as Murmansk oblast and Archangelsk region are rather peripherial territories.
 
In a way, such a twisted mindset is likely to have the effect of peripheralizing of oneself, that is to say, often unconscious and unintentional subordination to the more populous and prosperous regions and seeking to gaining something from their success.
 
All too often these sentiments are adopted by academic scholars. Typically, they are inclined to carry out applied research - as the opposite of basic research - which has often the focus on particular interests. This is not to say that applied research is nonsense - for the most of the cases it is highly relevant - but that there is a danger, again, to peripheralize oneself by connecting research objects to a specific locality without looking at the matter in varying contexts.
 
To widen our academic perspectives, we might set Norwegian experience as a benchmark. The Norwegian academy deserves our attention in two respects. First, in their global orientation, and second, in their ability to establish ties with Russian universities located in Barents region. 
 
As regards global orientation, we would mention the Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT) with its High North Research Centre for Climate and Environment (FRAM), in which also the secretariat of the Arctic Council is located. In terms of student exchange with Russian universities, one cannot be unaware of the high number of young Russians studying in Tromsø, neither Norwegian ones in Archangelsk.
 
In fact, more than 20 % of the academic staff and 10 % of the student body of the UiT are from abroad. Such a achievement serves as a benchmark for any university in globalized world.
 
As to my home university, the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), there is now a strategic opening concerning broad-based expertise in Russia. Cross-border cooperation with Russia is a self-evident part of this strategy. Under the auspices of the university, there is a specific unit titled Karelian Institute to carry out multidisciplinary cross-border studies related to the intellectual and material development of Eastern Finland, Karelia and the North-West of Russia.
 
What about linking the East to the North – the region of Karelia to the Barents region – and forgetting about national borders and vested interests associated with those? Could such geographically distant but mentally and intellectually close entities be tied together in a joint endeavour? We see how university staff at both UiT and UEF does cross-border research, where the researchers of both universities have well-established contacts with Russian universities. 
 
Obviously UiT and UEF are not the only universities engaged in crossing borders, discipline-wise or geographically. A question arises: which other institutions of higher education in the whole Barents region are also engaged in the same effort?
 
A new “East meets North” initiative, taken by fellow researchers at the UEF, seeks to bridge the disciplinary and territorial gap prevailing in the academy and other stakeholders in Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. It urges all scientists and practitioners, irrespective of one’s status, citizenship or discipline, to unite powers for this bridging work.
 
In parallel with the academic endeavour, a particular call for joint effort will be upon business and administrative forces of these regions. The ties established between scientists of different areas can pave the way to intra-territorial economic cooperation – and vice versa.
 
Related to the initiative, a seminar titled “East meets North: Rethinking of Economic and Academic Cooperation” will be held at UEF on 14-15 November, 2013. It invites all enthusiasts to give their contribution to the initiative. The keynote speakers include rector Elena Kudryashova, Northern (Arctic) Federal University, professor Hallvard Tjelmeland, University of Tromsø, Senior Administrator Pierre-André Forest, University of the Arctic, PhD Tero Mustonen, Snowchange Cooperative, director Kari Aalto, East and North Finland EU Office and region mayor Pentti Hyttinen, Regional Council of North Karelia.
 
Scientists and businesses of the North-East of Europe – unite!