Asian Arctic Research 2005-2012: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
FNI Report 3/2013. Lysaker, FNI, 2013, 39 p.
FNI Report 3/2013. Lysaker, FNI, 2013, 39 p.
Interest in the Arctic has surged in recent years; as the ice has melted, so has interest risen. One dimension of this new attention to the Arctic is the emergence of non-Arctic states. Their research-oriented presence in the region is sometimes seen as a strategy for legitimizing their role as stakeholders there. While several European countries have been operating for decades without being littoral states, since India opened its research station in Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard in 2008, attention towards Asian countries in the Arctic has increased. The Asian countries are sometimes met with suspicion, but such judgements are at best based on fuzzy and partial information. Hence came the idea for gathering statistical information on Asian Arctic Research. I here ask: How can the scientific Arctic research carried out by China, India, Japan and South Korea be described? What fields of research are in focus? How integrated are these countries into the larger international Arctic scientific community?