Replay or renew? Learning from 20+ years of Norwegian-Russian collaboration on health and social welfare in the Barents region (RE:BARENTS)

In RE:BARENTS we have investigated how Norwegian-Russian cooperation in health and welfare in the Barents Region has affected actors and societies from 2000 to the present. We have analysed the effects of various projects, programmes and institutional collaborations, as well as the interaction between authorities at different levels in Norway and Russia. The project has been a collaboration between academic partners (NIBR at OsloMet and Norce Research) and non-academic actors (Barents Secretariat and KS). After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the project had to be adapted to the new situation, and the collaboration with the Kola Science Centre was terminated. The overall research question was: What have been the effects of Norwegian-Russian cooperation on health and social welfare in the Barents Region over the past 20 years? We have specifically investigated: - What results have been achieved and what challenges have characterised the collaboration. - How the cooperation has adapted to political, economic and social changes, including increased tensions between Norway and Russia, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. - How Norwegian actors and local communities have handled the geopolitical upheaval after 2022. - What lessons can be transferred to other international cooperation. Key findings: Despite increasing challenges and a more authoritarian Russia, the cooperation has yielded important results, including in patient care, primary health care, preventive health work, e-health, health communication and cross-sectoral cooperation. Both Norwegian and Russian actors reported increased cooperation and better results over time. While the benefits for Russian actors were often concrete and direct, on the Norwegian side they were described as more indirect. A meta-analysis of evaluations and media discourses (2000-2025) showed that: - Russian mass media expressed strong opposition to project-based cooperation with Norway, but it also had supporters among governors, regional ministers and the opposition until 2022. - Geopolitical tensions and Russia's conservative turn placed limitations on the cooperation, but Norwegian actors did not experience this to a large extent as hampering the dynamics of the projects. - Evaluations of health cooperation took contextual factors into account to some extent, but this was rarely requested in the assignment mandates. Sub-studies in RE:BARENTS - Indigenous cooperation in the Barents region: Sami actors integrated indigenous interests early on in the Barents cooperation, but the field was vulnerable and dependent on individual efforts, which contributed to a gradual weakening of the indigenous structure from the mid-2010s. - Border conviviality: We introduced this concept to analyze how geopolitical and personal changes affect people-to-people cooperation in northern border areas, with a particular focus on Kirkenes after 2022. - Surveys (2022 and 2024): Nationwide surveys with enlarged samples in Northern Norway and Eastern Finnmark debunked the myth that attitudes towards Russia near the border differ significantly from the rest of Norway. - Twinning cooperation: We mapped Norwegian-Russian twinning cooperation since the 1970s and found that the experiences provide important insights into the driving forces for cross-border local community cooperation, even during geopolitical challenges. - Health cooperation between Tromsø and Arkhangelsk: The cooperation between the University Hospital of Northern Norway and health actors in Arkhangelsk (1990-2022) strengthened health services and professional competence on both sides, especially in cardiovascular diseases, infection control, e-health and nursing. Despite increasing geopolitical challenges, Norwegian-Russian cooperation in health and welfare in the Barents region has yielded important results and valuable experiences. Findings and analyses from the RE:Barents project provide insight into how such cooperation is developed, adapted and influenced by changing political and social frameworks.