Outbreak session at Arctic Circle

Stakeholder engagement has become a buzzword and a necessity that polar research cannot elude any longer. Yet, despite best intentions, stakeholder engagement often proves to be (too) challenging – risking frustration and fatigue amongst all involved actors.

This breakout session aims at bringing together arctic actors – scientists, local and indigenous peoples, business representatives, policymakers, as well as representatives from nongovernmental organisations, international organisations and civil society – to move from best intentions to ways of cooperation that are beneficial to all people involved.

The results of this session will feed into a Stakeholder Engagement Handbook in progress of development by EU-PolarNet.

Arctic Circle

The annual Arctic Circle Assembly is one of the largest annual international gatherings on the Arctic, attended by more than 2000 participants from 60 countries. The Assembly is held every October at the Harpa Conference Center and Concert Hall in Reykjavík, Iceland. It is attended by heads of states and governments, ministers, members of parliaments, officials, experts, scientists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, indigenous representatives, environmentalists, students, activists and others from the growing international community of partners and participants interested in the future of the Arctic.

About the speakers

Aili Keskitalo (President of the Sami Parliament of Norway)

Aili Keskitalo is a Norwegian Sami politician representing the Norwegian Sámi Association (NSR), and the current president of the Sami Parliament of Norway. She has a Master in Public Administration from Copenhagen Business School, in which she compared the school systems in Norway and Greenland. Keskitalo was the first Sámi President whose mother tongue was not Sámi but Norwegian. However, she speaks Northern Sami fluently.

Kirsi Latola (Finland)

Over the past ten years, Kirsi Latola has worked as a research coordinator at the Thule Institute at the University of Oulu and managed several national and international projects on research, knowledge sharing including organising several international events and graduate education. She has managed the University of the Arctic (UArctic) Thematic Networks strategic area since 2005 and is now acting as a Director of Thematic Networks. I addition to her work for UArctic and supporting the other research projects and proposals she is leading the transnational access work package in INTERACT – International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic (FP7, 2011-15 and H2020 2016-2020) and a task on stakeholder consultations in a EU-PolarNet project on Polar Research coordination (H2020, 2015-2019). Kirsi is currently acting as a chair of the European Polar Board and Thule Institute’s representative in the EPB.

Per Fauchald (Norway)

Senior Research Scientist, Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and leader for the Fram Centre research programme, Environmental impact of industrial development in the north (MIKON)

MIKON’s objective is to do research that will strengthen the knowledge base used by the authorities in efforts to limit the “footprint” of industrial activity in the High North, and ensure that new industrial activity takes place within a responsible environmental framework. The research within the MIKON programme will take into consideration both existing business activities and visions/expectations of future developments.

Knowledge areas: Ecosystem ecology and ecosystem-based management. Environmental and sustainability science. Socio-ecological systems. The Arctic. Marine ecosystems and coastal ecology.

Key qualifications:  Inter-disciplinary syntheses of socio-ecological systems. Quantitative analyses of complex and large datasets. Spatial statistical analyses. Ecosystem modelling. Theoretical and spatial ecology

Kuno Fencker (Greenland)

Chairman of the Board, Royal Arctic Line, Greenland.

An experienced businessman from the sectors: logistics, shipping, oil & gas and ICT, in Greenland.

Education in Business Administration from Greenland Business School and Alborg University.

Kristin Røymo (Norway)

Kristin Røymo is the Mayor of Tromsø, elected in 2015. Røymo holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Transformation from UiT. She has worked as Political Advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1999 she was first elected to the municipality of Tromsø for the first time.

Henry Burgess (UK)

Henry is the Head of the NERC Arctic Office, hosted by the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. The Office operates the UK’s Arctic Station in Ny-Ålesund (Svalbard, Norway); supports UK Arctic research activity; provide advice to policymakers, and develop international scientific cooperation across all aspects of Arctic research.

Before he joined the Arctic Office in February 2016, Henry was the Deputy Head of the Polar Regions Department in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with particular responsibility for representing the UK in the discussions of the Committee for Environmental Protection in the Antarctic Treaty System, of which the UK was a founder member. Prior to that, Henry worked in a range of Government Departments, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Cabinet Office.

Moderator: Nils Arne Johnsen (Norway)

Director Regional Business Development at Troms County Council