NP «North-Centre». «Northern Competencies: Can the North compete with the South?»

The Round Table «Northern Competencies: Can the North compete with the South?» took place in the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences within the framework of the 8th Annual International Summer School in Karelia (ISSK’10) at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of Petrozavodsk State University on the 14^th of May, 2010. The Round Table was organized by the «North Centre», Petrozavodsk State University and four Finnish universities: University of Lapland, University of Tampere, Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki, and the University of Eastern Finland.

The program of the Round Table included presentations by young scientists from Karelian Research Centre, and discussions of the topics connected with the peculiarities of economic development and competitiveness of Northern regions, opportunities for improving the standard and attractiveness of life in the North.

Republic of Karelia and other northern regions, as well as innovative approaches to the governance in the European North have been discussed at the meeting. Such topical challenges as the «brain drain» and the labor migration issue (from Russia to the West) were of particular interest to the audience, and incited heated discussions.

The participants devoted considerable attention to and vigorously discussed the account of the regional and structural aspects of national competitiveness of the Russian Federation presented by young scholars from the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Several interesting and innovative ideas concerning the opportunities for the Karelian Republic to evolve from a depressed region with a mono-industrial economy specializing in raw materials into a region with effective structure of the economy based on the high-tech and services sectors were presented in Artem Shishkin’s (PhD in Economics) (on the photo) speech.

One of the most important aspects of the Round Table was the experience and opinions exchange with foreign guests from Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Italy, Norway and the USA on the topics discussed, and their willingness and preparedness for further cooperation.