Tia Manninen
Since 2012, the Arctic Yearbook has served as a platform for independent analysis of Circumpolar politics and governance. Over the past decade, the context in which Arctic knowledge is produced has changed rapidly. Climate change is accelerating, major powers are becoming more confrontational, people have less room to express dissent in some countries, and information is increasingly shaped by technology, reshaping not only the subjects we study, but also who is able to speak about them. In this environment, we must also challenge the exclusions and assumptions built into the academic systems that determine who is recognised as a credible contributor, and who is not.
Elena Kavanagh, Alina Kovalenko & Patrick Rigot-Muller
Global interest in the Arctic intensifies, and the demand for interdisciplinary Arctic research has never been greater. The Republic of Ireland (Ireland) is strategically positioned in the global Arctic research landscape and may be referred to as a sub-Arctic state, offering unique geographic, infrastructural, and diplomatic advantages. Its Atlantic-facing location, historic ties to polar exploration, and significant contribution to Arctic science are positioning it as a strategic actor in Arctic studies.
This article examines Ireland's evolving scientific engagement with the region through three key lenses: its research output and collaborations, institutional frameworks supporting polar studies, and emerging Arctic policy dimensions. Bibliometric analysis shows Ireland's substantial and growing engagement in creating an Arctic research footprint, with over 460 Arctic-related publications since 2000 showing a strong international collaboration. The particular strengths are climate science, marine technology, and renewable energy. This scientific activity is supported by research networks, as well as infrastructure including the vessel for Arctic monitoring such as RV Celtic Explorer.
The Ireland's scientific engagement connects with broader Arctic policy discourse, including its Arctic Council Observer application (Government of Ireland, 2020) and participation in major Arctic forums. These developments position Ireland as an important sub-Arctic research partner, yet the current absence of a consolidated national Arctic strategy reflects instability in the geopolitical sphere of Arctic governance.
Hanna Oosterveen
Before I started my year of ethnographic fieldwork here in Abisko (68.3495° N, 18.8312° E) at the scientific research station, my plan was to work with Arctic environmental scientists to see what collaboration means to them and how they practice collaborations. My hope was that this could give a picture of how expertise about Arctic climate change is developed and stabilized. Since arriving here, as often happens during a period of extended fieldwork, I have found that there are more reflective strands to follow if I am looking to get a picture of how Arctic climate science expertise is formed, especially if I am interested in also grasping the relationship between Arctic science and society.
Charlene Miles
The Arctic, long seen as a model of international cooperation, continues to experience mounting geopolitical tensions and militarization that threaten the region’s social fabric, woven from Indigenous knowledge, rural and urban realities, and the needs of vulnerable populations. Additionally, climate change profoundly shapes the Arctic, acting as both a security concern and a driver of ongoing challenges for communities. Compassion resilience, rooted in empathy and community strength, is not just a theoretical concept but a living necessity for ensuring the Arctic remains a zone of peace, justice, and sustainability. Importantly, the Arctic is not currently an active conflict zone, but rather a region at risk due to converging pressures, making prevention critical.
Marta Koch
Multilateral climate policymaking and diplomacy has long prioritised countries classified as “developing” or “low-income” by the World Bank and United Nations, channeling climate finance and technical assistance accordingly (World Bank, 2022; UNDP, 2023; Farias, 2022). Yet this framework overlooks critical settings that, despite residing within high income and transition economy nations, are faced with severe environmental and climate related vulnerabilities.
Climate vulnerable settings, from low lying Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, cyclone prone coastal zones in South Asia and flooding-prone areas in Japan (IPCC, 2023), drought hit areas in the Sahel (OECD, 2024), to the melting permafrost and eroding shorelines of the Arctic (WWF, 2023), demand equal policy attention, investment and implementation focus. As the world approaches our final opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5°C, where greenhouse gas emissions must decline 43% by 2030 as per the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015) and the 2030 deadline for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 interconnected global objectives adopted by all UN Member States in 2015 to ensure sustainable development for all by concurrently protecting the planet and ensuring prosperity by 2030 (UN, 2015), policymakers must broaden their lens beyond economic development categorisation to include environmental risk and adaptive capacity (Arctic Council, 2021; IPCC, 2022). This has recently become more pressing as a result of the latest research highlighting how progress across the 17 UN SDGs is fundamentally interconnected and positively correlated in climate vulnerable regions like the Arctic; delays or gaps in climate action often correlate with setbacks in economic, social and governance outcomes (Koch, 2024).
This article highlights the critical Arctic case study, but it is worth applying this globally to all climate-vulnerable settings: international organisations which hold multilateral capacity-building resources such as the United Nations and World Bank Group should update sustainable development frameworks to explicitly prioritise all climate vulnerable settings, in addition to accounting for their economic development classification, ensuring no community is neglected in terms of climate and sustainability action capacity-building and finance.
Teresa Barros Cardoso
It is unacceptable how a response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has made it impossible to create a national action framework for the Arctic, under the terms of Assembly of the Republic Resolution 76/2023 of 29 June.
The Arctic is today of such global importance — in terms of security, given the interests of various States in exploiting the region’s natural resources, and in terms of the environment and climate at a planetary scale — that it demands the mobilisation of the international community as a whole (Azam & Iqbal, 2023).
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