Dear BarentSaga Readers! Hopefully I am not the only history freak who is thrilled by the mere thought of getting a grip on a copy of the Barents History, a book to be published in 2013 as a collective work of Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Russian scholars. It will be a unique history book because Mr Lars Elenius, history professor from Northern Sweden, has set the aim to encompass Barents history from an international and interregional point of view. But I don’t want to pre-empt the pleasure of our readers to learn more about this Barents project themselves from the horse’s mouth. As the Barents Cooperation generates a large number of different projects a major problem tends to be their financing. Where to seek funding for a new project? Presumably an article on the Horizon 2020 can help potential applicants. This relates also to other project-related contributions released in this BarentSaga newsletter. Even though I have highlighted only two themes above it doesn’t mean that the remainder of a wide range of articles would not be interesting – quite to the contrary! I wish our readers enjoyable Barents reading! And last but not least - please don’t miss our new project page on www.barentscooperation.org. The IBS invites you all to tell us about your ongoing Barents projects so that they can be included on our project page for everyone to see. Ari Sirén, Head of the International Barents Secretariat November, 2012
Trade, the Sámi culture, open borders, and the living conditions in the North are some of the characteristics that brought people close to each other already many decades ago in the area that in 1993 was named the Barents Region. But despite the long-standing relations there is a historical gap between the past and the dynamism of our times. Read more >>
The Barents Freeway is a project aimed at economic and social development of local communities in the Kolarctic area through optimization of transport infrastructure on the basis of the Common Barents Region Transport Strategy. Read more >>
The need for project funding is an issue mentioned repeatedly at various Barents meetings. The Horizon 2020 is not restricted to an area leaving out parts of the Region, and it coincides with most of the prioritized Barents topics directly connected to both assets and challenges in the Region. Read more >>
The idea of the Barents Journal is to provide scientific knowledge and latest research news related to developmental processes within the Barents Region as well as socio-economic, political, environmental developments, and thus providing information outside and within the programme area. Read more >>
The Murmansk based journalist Elena Larionova is playing a crucial role in cross border contacts between journalists in the Barents Region. Read more >>