8
Preface
The New Arctic Human Dimension
Alexander Pelyasov
This volume of the Arctic Yearbook is devoted to the umbrella topic of Arctic human capital and
capacity. The success in the elaboration of the new industrial districts in the Arctic both offshore
and onshore, the success with the Arctic Universities, and of Arctic entrepreneurs is highly
dependent up on the quality and quantity of the Arctic human capital.
Learning by communicating - as nowhere else the growth of the Arctic human capital is dependent
upon the art of communication in the Arctic cities, Arctic forums, and Arctic projects. In 2014 we
have had a good deal of such Arctic international events with definite influence on Arctic human
capital. To name a few let us remember ICASS VIII in Prince George, British Columbia, the 54th
European Regional Science Association Congress in St.Petersburg with a strong Arctic focus, and
the successful end of almost three years of work under Arctic Human Development Report-2.
The general idea of the numerous presentations and papers in these forums is that under the
challenges of rapidly changing Arctic social and natural environment it is critical to provide an
adequate and creative reply with Arctic systems of education, Arctic innovative clusters and regional
innovation systems. And the engine of all these elements of the Arctic innovative infrastructure is
Arctic human capital - these are talents and highly qualified specialists.
Under the contemporary conditions of globalization the whole Arctic looks like one united
community of practice when somebody’s ideas are immediately picked up by the neighbors to
collectively build one united Arctic house, Arctic Mediterranean for all. Indeed the Arctic is
absolutely unique as people here are involved in “trade” with each other not with resources, as they
have similar resources throughout the Arctic, but with knowledge, ideas, competences and human
capital of inter-polar migrants.
Each of the countries from the five economic models of the Northern economy (Russian, Canadian,
American, Nordic and island) can contribute to and enrich the common Arctic human capital pool:
Alexander Pelyasov is the Director of the Center for the Arctic and Northern Economies, Moscow.