By Outi Snellman, Secretary General, UArctic
Originally published in the UArctic Shared Voices Magazine 2024
Wonderful things happen when people simply work together and are open to new ways of thinking. To me, every single article demonstrates this, starting from huge collaborative efforts like Arctic research planning to stories of individuals who have found whole new paths and careers through working with others.
Formal Arctic cooperation through the Arctic Council has been paused since 2022. This has severely impacted the possibility for all types of collaboration in the Arctic: economic, cultural, research, education, mobility. However, UArctic as an organization has been able to shift focus from circumpolar to more global, including entire new regions in our activities. It now looks like even circumpolar cooperation will again be possible at least in limited ways, and UArctic is a good place to start with rebuilding bridges between people.
Even the cover of Shared Voices Magazine 2024 demonstrates collaboration: an icebreaker leads the way, assisting others so they can follow. It is also a recognition of a new UArctic collaboration on maritime safety, adding to the earlier strategic focus on tipping points. In both strategic initiatives UArctic members are still the drivers, leading the way – and of course, showing how great an impact we can have when we join forces with others.
[Originally published in the UArctic Shared Voices Magazine 2024. Read all articles here]