The UArctic Project “UArctic Coordinated undergraduate/graduate Educational program in Environmental Pollution Research (Arctic-CEEP)” is funded by UiT-The Arctic University of Norway and support educational activities within the cooperation framework of the University of the Arctic (UArctic). The Lead institution is the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) with four partner institutions, including Harbin Institute of Technology, China (HIT), North-Eastern Federal University, Russia (NEFU), the University Centre in Svalbard, Norway (UNIS), and the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC).
On November 26, 2020, a Kickoff Meeting of the Project was held on line due to the world-wide COVID epidemic situation. Prof. Roland Kallenborn from NMBU chaired the meeting, Prof. Antonina Savvinova from the NEFU, and Profs. Zifeng Zhang, Liyan Liu, Yifan Li, Mr. Siling Jiang, as well as several students from HIT attended the meeting. Four major issues were discussed, including the ideas and plans of the Program, courses and projects, time line and harmonization of teaching plans and advertising of the program and student recruitment.
Roland started the meeting by giving an introduction to the Arctic-CEEP, explained the project priorities and goals. Roland also introduced the NMBU’s ideas and plans of the Project. After Roland, Prof. Antonina Savvinova presented the ideas and plans of NEFU towards the Project.
Zifeng reported the development and advanced practices of the International Arctic school (IAS) of HIT. He introduced the upcoming International Arctic Winter School (IAS-HIT-eWinter2021) with the theme “POPs and Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern (CEACs) in the Arctic under Climate Change” to be held on line in 4-17 January 2021. The established IAS-HIT seasonal program was accepted by the Arctic-CEEP as a core educational program. He also introduced the Thematic Network on “POPs and Chemicals of Emerging Concern in the Asian Arctic”-Workshop (TN-POPs-eWorkshop2020) 2020 to be held in December 28-29, 2020. Both Roland and Antonina expressed their strong support to the IAS-HIT-eWinter2021 and TN-POPs-eWorkshop2020.
At the end of the meeting, Yifan suggested to establish a Four University Consortium, including four UArctic member universities, NMBU, UNIS, HIT, and NEFU, in which a Mobility Program will be start for the Arctic education. As the first step towards to the China2North program, the Four University Consortium Mobility Program aims to high-quality education and research by focusing on an Arctic dimension in course delivery and by facilitating opportunities to study, to provide the graduate/undergraduate students opportunities to study and carry out relevant research in different university of the Consortium. For example, the students of the four universities are able to study the common Arctic courses in each of all four universities and obtain the credit for studying these courses. This suggestion was also supported by Roland and Antonina.
The successful kickoff meeting has coordinated the work of the Project Arctic-CEEP, clarified its main work direction in 2021, laid a strong foundation for the success of the Arctic-CEEP, strengthened the cooperation among all participants of the Arctic-CEEP in the Arctic education and research, and played a positive role in promoting future polar scientific research and student education under the framework of the UArctic.
