During its Council meeting in June in Arkhangelsk, the Council of UArctic confirmed the establishment of the UArctic Master Program, endorsed the Program’s goals and in principle approved the foundation principles as outlined in the Guidelines for the UArctic Master Program. The Council further asked the President to take immediate action to ensure that the new Program is developed quickly.
 
The development of the UArctic Graduate Area has been led from the UArctic Field School office at UNIS, Longyearbyen and was developed in close cooperation with leading UArctic member institutions. The New Graduate area will consist of the UArctic Master Program, the Field School Program, and the PhD networks (Graduate Networks).
 
Institutions who might be interested should consider their capacity to take the lead of this very important program in UArctic. Successful candidates should demonstrate adherence to UArctic Values and Goals, preparedness to demonstrate relevant competency, experience in international cooperation in a broad specter of disciplines, and have experience in the development of Graduate programs in cooperation with institutions in other countries. The leader will be supported by a program team consisting of selected experts from the circumpolar north as well as the leaders of the Field School and Graduate Networks programs.
 
The leader will have the strategic lead for the whole of the Graduate area both when it comes to content and delivery and will have support from the rest of UArctic in finding resources for the operations this strategic area. UArctic will encourage all those who gave so valuable time and resources to the early development phase of the Graduate Area to consider continuing to serve in the program activity.  The need to balance competency and UArctic values, regional background etc. will be taken into consideration when creating the team.
 
Although the former call will only be made around mid-August, interested institutions are encouraged to start the necessary steps now in order to be ready when the call comes.