Comprehensive Policy-Brief to the EU Commission: Roadmap to Decolonial Arctic Research

The "Comprehensive Policy Brief to the EU Commission - Roadmap to Decolonial Arctic Research" is an evidence-based tool for achieving decolonial innovation in methodology and funding mechanisms in the Arctic research landscape, including the natural and social sciences and the humanities. In four concise chapters, the group of experts, consisting of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and Indigenous rights holders, 1) guide the readership through the legal and political dimensions as well as that of research innovation and paradigmatic shifts in Arctic research; 2) it offers concrete methodological considerations in carrying out projects; 3) it elaborates on the participation of Indigenous rights holders in the EU research funding structures from a practice perspective. 4) it outlines the benefits of Indigenous-led Arctic research and of funding co-creative projects. This Roadmap can support the mainstreaming of co-creative and collaborative principles and equal partnership by Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors in 1) large-scale research projects, 2) calls for projects, 3) proposal design and project evaluation, and 4) in the implementation of the European Polar Research Program. At the international level, the rights of Indigenous Peoples have been receiving increasing legal recognition. Similarly, EU calls-for-proposals ask nowadays increasingly for a ‘co-design approach’ in research (e.g., in the past Horizon 2020, and the current Horizon Europe funding schemes). Arctic researchers are increasingly adopting decolonial research approaches. Yet implementing decolonial research practices as new standards and taking initiative that supports Indigenous sovereignty in the Arctic is often still lacking. Therefore, theoretical and methodological expertise about co-creation of knowledge, as offered in this Roadmap, can help to foster capacity among researchers in all disciplines (natural and social sciences, the humanities) and among the relevant funding bodies such as the EU Commission and the large variety of international and national funding organisations.