INTERACT

INTERACT III innovates a pan-arctic network of 86 research stations in 16 northern countries to provide a fully integrated, advanced infrastructure now able to meaningfully address major societal challenges and provide services for 155 global and regional networks. Furthermore, the global reputation of INTERACT has attracted world-leading partners and enterprises to participate in reducing the impacts of hazardous change while maximizing the opportunities arising from new technologies. Specifically, INTERACT III provides comprehensive coordination of 64 partners and 86 research stations. The station managers design best practices to ensure excellent research, monitoring, education and outreach. INTERACT III builds on an extremely successful transnational access program that has already populated the Arctic with 900 researchers to further provide excellent science while reducing the environmental footprints of researchers through improving remote and virtual access. The access transnationality ensures new collaborations, innovative science and science diplomacy at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions. Station managers, transnational access and joint research activities cooperate to address major societal challenges in a fully integrated infrastructure while their data and understanding are made globally available through exceptional outreach and education and policy briefings to decision makers.

This project has a main objective to build capacity for identifying, understanding, predicting and responding to diverse environmental changes throughout the wide environmental and land-use envelopes of the Arctic.

The EPB’s main work in INTERACT is to communicate to policymakers the experiences of Station Managers of the Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation, including its on-the-ground effectiveness and any bottlenecks to its implementation.

For further information, please visit: https://eu-interact.org/

Access to the Arctic, and northern alpine and forest areas

INTERACT station managers and researchers have established partnerships that are developing more efficient networks of sensors to measure changing environmental conditions and the partnerships are also making data storage and accessibility more efficient through a single portal. New communities of researchers are being offered access to terrestrial infrastructures while local stakeholders as well as major international organisations are involved in interactions with the infrastructures.

The trans-national access component is crucial to building capacity for research in the European Arctic and beyond. INTERACT is offering transnational access to 43 research stations located in the Arctic, and northern alpine and forest areas in the Europe, Russia and North-America. It is providing opportunities to researchers to work in the field in often harsh and remote locations that are generally difficult to access. In return, the input of new researchers has led to cross fertilisation, comparative measurements at different locations and new research directions at the individual infrastructures.

For further information, please visit: https://eu-interact.org/