On Wednesday 25th of January, the Arctic Awards ceremony was held in Oulu, where the winner of the Arctic Awards 2022 was announced. The FAIR project was one of the finalists together with the Grude – Green Rural Economy project and Wasteless Karelias project. After an exciting voting, that had started already on the fifth of December 2022, it was official that the Wasteless Karelias project was the winner.
– From the Kvarken Council’s side, and on the behalf of the whole project partnership, we want to thank everyone who voted for the FAIR project. To be in the final has already been an honour, even though we have already been proud of the partnership and the FAIR project, says Johanna Häggman, the Kvarken Council’s Communications Manager.
– It was thrilling until the last minute since all finalists held their pitches at the award ceremony before the voting ended. We also want to thank partners and everyone who have worked for this project, and of course also financiers of the project. There would not be any project without real cross border collaboration, initiators, doers, and financiers – thank you, Häggman continues.
An award focusing on sustainable development with a strong commitment from the stakeholders in the Arctic
Following a break in 2021, the Arctic Awards are back to highlight exceptional projects focusing on topics of particular relevance to the Arctic area. This year all five original Arctic Cooperation programmes during the 2014–2020 funding period: Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme 2014–2020, Interreg Botnia-Atlantica, Interregnord, Kolarctic CBC, and Karelia CBC Programme, has nominated two projects each that focus on sustainable development in the Arctic, with a strong involvement of Arctic stakeholders.
During October and November 2022 all 10 nominated projects were presented on the Arctic Cooperation Facebook page. After that a jury selected three finalists that participated in an online campaign. Then it was time for the public to vote for their favourite and in this way decide the one and only winner.
The objective of the Arctic Award is to identify good practice, promote Arctic cross-border collaboration, and raise awareness among projects of each other. The Awards were launched for the first time in 2017.
Photo: Wasteless Karelias project team members that won the Arctic Awards 2022.
FAIR was a two-year long project and a first step of preparing the Kvarken-Nordland region for an early implementation of electric aviation. The project increased the knowledge base, investigated the possibilities, and surveyed both the needs and the required technical investments.
