The sessions held in Rovaniemi and Inari approach the overarching themes also through addressing regionally important questions and concerns. The presentations focus on topics such as mining, indigenous people’s rights, alternative conceptualizations of security, and the globalized Arctic between rapid resources development and sustainability.

After the Finnish sessions, the travelling symposium will continue onwards to Kirkenes, Norway, and Murmansk and Apatity, Russia, where sessions will take place until the 8th of June. The participants attending the touring symposium have been selected based on applications, and most of them are early career scientists from the North Calotte as well as from elsewhere in Europe and from the United States, Canada and Russia.

The Calotte Academy has been arranged annually since 1991 with an aim to bring together students, other experts, local stakeholders as well as scientists with different academic backgrounds and in different stages of their academic careers. The founder of the Calotte Academy, Professor Lassi Heininen, sees the added value of the Calotte Academy in its explicit aim to create an alternative model for conventional academic conferences where the time allocated for genuine discussion often remains very limited. The Academy also aims to contribute to discussions and debates over regional development through inviting local politicians and stakeholders to participate in the sessions with the intention of sharing research results and insights, creating networks and fostering dialogue between the local actors and the international scientific community.

The Calotte Academy 2014 is arranged in cooperation with the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Lapland, the Sámi Educational Centre of Inari, the Thule Institute at the University of Oulu, the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Community Planning at the University of Tromsø, and the Luzin Institute for Economic Studies at the Kola Science of Russian Academy of Sciences. It is a part of the activities of the thematic network on geopolitics and security (UArctic and Northern Research Forum). The Calotte Academy receives financial support from the Nordic Council of Ministers, Inari Municipal Business & Development Nordica, International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), and Norwegian Barents Secretariat.


Further information:

Lassi Heininen
Professor in Arctic Politics
University of Lapland
lassi.heininen (at) ulapland.fi
Tel. +358 40 484 4215
 
 
ULapland/Communications/SV