research

The Arctic Centre is internationally recognized for the quality and relevance of its multidisciplinary Arctic research, which is our key activity. Through this research, the Arctic Centre promotes increased knowledge, awareness and understanding of the Arctic both within and outside the region. This research supports decision-making and sustainable development in the Arctic.

The multidisciplinary research at the Arctic Centre focuses on the interaction between man and the nature. International research is carried out in the arctic, subarctic and boreal zones.

The research builds new multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary practices between natural and social environmental research. The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law (NIEM) carries out research in environmental law and human rights law. The Arctic Centre also provides environmental impact assessment and environmental auditing services.

Arctic Studies Program

The Arctic Studies Program (ASP) offers a unique opportunity to specialize in Arctic issues. The approach of the ASP is truly multidisciplinary and it provides comprehensive knowledge of the physical, environmental, social and cultural aspects of the Arctic. The ASP is organized and coordinated by the University of Lapland’s Arctic Centre and Faculty of Social Sciences. The programme is connected to the Arctic Centre’s research and the courses in the programme are taught by senior scientists and other researchers at the Arctic Centre and the Faculty of Social Sciences.

The Global Change Research Group studies the impacts on increasing economic activities on the ecology, environment and societies in the Arctic. This research group focusing on natural sciences the climate change is also analyzed with the help of glaciology and mathematical modelling.

The Sustainable Development Research Group has two research teams: Northern political economy and Northern communities, Northern possibilities. Together these two teams, focusing on social sciences, study politics of local and indigenous everyday life, as issues of identity, adaptation and resilience in the face of multiple and complex changes in the Arctic. 

The Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law carries out research in the international treaties and statutes concerning the Arctic as well as land law and environmental law relating to the Arctic indigenous peoples.

The Anthropology research team studies how human groups across the Arctic are culturally similar or diverse. In particular, the ways in which shared human practices, values, worldviews, institutions and economic forms lead to identification of people with groups. Themes include human-animal-environment relations,  Arctic peoples and industrial development, space, landscape and mobility in the North, movement and emplacement, and oral history.

The Arctic Governance groups aim is to render complexity of Arctic governance more transparent and provide policy-makers, scholars and other actors with a more holistic knowledge-base to make better informed and more responsible decisions.

Human Security as a promotional tool for societal security in the Arctic: Addressing Multiple Vulnerability to its Population with Specific Reference to the Barents Region. Among other topics, the project addresses the following questions such as: How and why the concept of human security in response to its philosophical foundation is applicable to the Arctic region, and amongst the Arctic communities? How the concept of human security enhances the understanding of societal security, in particular in the context of the population of Barents region?

Human-animal adaptations to the Arctic environment: natural and folk selection practices. In this multidisciplinary project methods and approaches of socio-ecological anthropology and genetics will be integrated to investigate biological and cultural adaptations of Arctic animal breeds and societies. In doing so, we aim to contribute new answers to the question of nature's and culture's roles for shaping the diverse environments, resources and livelihoods of the Arctic. We do so by analysing people’s relations and selective breeding practices with three different kinds of animals, one Arctic species (reindeer), and two non-Arctic species that have adapted to the Arctic (cattle, horses). 

Research Professor John Moore leads the Chinese geoengineering project focussed on Earth System Model simulations of climate engineering. The tools used to answer the research questions are:

• Advanced ice sheet models simulating Antarctica and smaller glaciers and ice caps and their response to climate forcing over the next 2 centuries
• Earth System Models on super computers to simulate the response of the earth to changing climate, and potential geoengineering methods of moderating greenhouse gas warming.
• Mathematical modelling and analysis of proxy climate records to determine natural modes of variability in the system