Abstract
The Bologna process has structured and established a higher education arena, and can be seen as a platform for educational cooperation and regional building. The process has also facilitated collaboration across the former “iron curtain”, and this chapter addresses educational cooperation in the Barents region, between the northern part of Norway and the northwestern part of Russia. Educational collaboration between these two countries are not only about economic and academic development, but also about people-to-people relations, foreign policy, diplomacy and soft power. It is within the ramifications provided by the combination of international, national and local contexts and pressures that internationalization and practical collaboration are invented, developed and maintained. International cooperation in higher education often take the form of partnerships, and here we adopt a partnership perspective as the point of departure for analysing the collaborative efforts, their establishment, and how they play out within the institutional frameworks. The chapter apply interdependency as a core concept, and the development of the four studied partnerships are largely explained by Norwegian economic incentives and a strong drive towards internationalization in both countries’ higher educational institutions and systems.
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Notes
- 1.
Vladimir Putin’s aim is to have five Russian universities in the global top by 2020. Currently only Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University are on the Shanghai Ranking of World Universities (Kastouéva-Jean 2013).
- 2.
- 3.
After the merger in 2016 with Nord-Trøndelag University College, Nordland University (UIN) was renamed Nord University. Since this work was commenced prior to the change we for reasons of simplicity choose to use the former name University of Nordland (UiN) in this article.
- 4.
After the merger in 2013 with University of Tromsø Finnmark University College (FUC) was renamed the Finnmark Faculty and then again in 2016 to Faculty of Sports, Tourism and Social Work. Since this work was commenced prior to the change we for reasons of simplicity choose to use the former name Finnmark University College (FUC) in this article.
- 5.
University of Tromsø – The Arctic University, University of Nordland (since 2016 Nord University), Finnmark University College (in 2013 merged with University of Tromsø), Murmansk State Technical University, Murmansk State Humanitarian University, International Institute of Business Education (MIBO in Murmansk, Northern Arctic Federal University in Archangelsk (NArFU). There were no interviews made with representatives from Baltic State Technical University and Northern State Medical University.
- 6.
University of Tromsø changed name in 2013 after a merger to UiT – The Arctic University, and also acquired further national responsibility for Arctic and Northern affairs. In the following we use the short version UiT.
- 7.
Nordic School of Public Health (Gothenburg, Sweden), Umeå International School of Public Health (Umeå, Sweden), Mid-Sweden University (Sundsvall, Sweden), Tampere School of Public Health (Tampere, Finland), National Institute of Public Health (Oslo, Norway).
- 8.
During the 5 year project more than 20 teachers from UiT participated voluntarily. To save money the lecturers agreed to receive no salary for their contributions, only reimbursement for the expenses. This gives a good indication of the enthusiasm that surrounded the project.
- 9.
It received the Russian federal standard of higher professional education no. 060400 “Public Health”.
- 10.
In 2011 also a UArctic research office was established at NArFU.
- 11.
University of Nordland (since 2016 reorganized into Nord University, in 2011 Nordland University College was reorganized into the University of Nordland) has some 6000 students and 50% of the foreign students are from Russia.
- 12.
UArctic is a large and complex organization that originally started as a conference – Circumpolar University Association – who altered between the Arctic states. When UArctic came into existence as a permanent organization in 2001 the head office was located to Rovaniemi, Finland. Developing courses is a main task for UArctic, and a number of thematic networks have a central role in this. As stated by Hesseln et al. (2013, p. 205), “UArctic is neither a university nor strictly focused on the Arctic. Rather, it is a network of higher learning and research institutions committed to serving the North.”
- 13.
As a member of the University of the Arctic the University of Tromsø also coordinates the Go North project which is a joint effort to market the HEIs in the Arctic region, as well as the North2north fellowships, a program which offers students from all over the world opportunities to study at a northern higher education institution and experience life in the Arctic. They also administer the national UArctic fund. UiT also participates in several of the thematic UArctic networks, but have nevertheless showed little interest in the UArctic course program.
- 14.
Whereas the advanced emphasis program at UiN focused on Scandinavian societies and politics and Arctic natural resource management, the program at FUC addressed issues such as innovation and entrepreneurship, local and regional development and North American studies and intercultural communication.
- 15.
Some elements of the BNS is approved in the university’s educational program.
- 16.
MSTU has also included the BNS program in some of their ordinary local programs.
- 17.
One exception can be the NORRUSS-project, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, of which this book is a part.
- 18.
It is nevertheless noteworthy that Norway is placed among the five countries in the world that score highest on key characteristic of a developed knowledge economy (Smeby and Gornitzka 2008).
- 19.
Until recently there was a sharp division of labor between educational institutions (HEIs) and research institutions (Russian Academy of Science institutions).
- 20.
After a reform in 2013 are Norwegian universities largely autonomous to make exemptions for tuition fees.
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Sandersen, H.T. (2017). Success by Necessity? Educational Partnerships Between Individual Initiatives and Institutional Frameworks. In: Sundet, M., Forstorp, PA., Örtenblad, A. (eds) Higher Education in the High North. Higher Education Dynamics, vol 48. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56832-4_6
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