On December 10-11, 2014 St. Petersburg hosted the 4th International Forum "The Arctic: the Present and the Future" sponsored by the Polar Association. The event attracted a wide range of specialists, government officials and explorers engaged in the Arctic research and development, with the total attendance of plenary and working sessions reaching almost 700 delegates from 20 Russian regions.
On December 10-11, 2014 St. Petersburg hosted the 4th International Forum "The Arctic: the Present and the Future" sponsored by the Polar Association. The event attracted a wide range of specialists, government officials and explorers engaged in the Arctic research and development, with the total attendance of plenary and working sessions reaching almost 700 delegates from 20 Russian regions.
Opening the forum, Russian President's Special Representative on International Cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic Arthur Chilingarov, a RIAC Member, stressed that the Arctic idea must engulf the entire Russian society and grow into its national idea.
Integrated Arctic research offers a way to have this aim reached. According to RIAC Member Helena Kudryashova, Rector of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University, the Arctic science should be regarded as a separate discipline, while the Russian Arctic must be seen as a single territory rather than as an assortment of lands spread over several entities of the Russian Federation.
This year the forum gave a lot of attention to international cooperation, the key conclusion being in the need to avoid interruptions in the Arctic cooperation between Russia and its regional partners. Ambassador-at-Large Vladimir Barbin, Russia's envoy to the Arctic Council, said that the heart of the matter was in preventing politicization of the relationships and advancing the ongoing international projects on the basis of international law.
Of major importance to this end seems to be the availability of skilled personnel and building up of the northern potentials, as was underlined by a report prepared by the Council on Productive Forces on request of RIAC. Presenting the report, RIAC Expert and Council representative Alexander Kotov emphasized that in the current international environment more opportunities emerge for cooperation between regions and municipalities of the Arctic countries under the auspices of chambers for commerce and industry with broad participation of small and medium businesses and universities.
Detailed analysis of the Arctic personnel training and university-level cooperation was provided by specialized panels. RIAC Deputy Program Director Timur Makhmutov spoke on higher education and presented the RIAC works on the Arctic cooperation, as well as related publications, having announced the electronic issue of the three-volume reader "The Arctic Region: Problems of International Cooperation" on the RIAC website. Speakers underlined the prominent role of RIAC in advancing cooperation in the science and education areas, stressing the intense interest to the materials of RIAC that plans to regularly publish analytical papers on international cooperation in the Arctic.
4th International Forum "The Arctic: the Present and the Future"
