The Nordic globalisation initiative

Across the globe, the competition for highly-skilled students and researches has intensified. The Nordic countries are looking to promote their positions of strengths to attract highly-skilled workers, student and researchers to allow innovation and growth to thrive. As a response to the growing, global challenges the Nordic prime ministers launched a joint globalisation initiative in 2007. The purpose of the initiative was to strengthen the competitiveness of the Nordic countries as well as to create a more knowledgeable, more visible and more prosperous Nordic region.

The globalisation work has contributed in many ways to setting a new, interdisciplinary and more focused agenda for the work conducted in the Nordic Council of Ministers. As part of the initiative, efforts are being made to create a regional area for education, knowledge and research.

Since the launch of the globalisation initiative, the Nordic Council of Ministers has worked on a globalisation project, entitled Promotion of Higher Education in the Nordic Region. The project aims to make the Nordic countries an attractive and innovative higher education and research area known for its high quality with a strong Nordic profile.

Nordic Council of Ministers

The Nordic Council of Ministers is the forum for Nordic governmental cooperation. Together with the Minister of Education, the Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation represents Denmark in the Nordic Council of Ministers for Education and Research (MR-U), which has the overall responsibility for education and research cooperation in the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Nordic Master Programme

The joint Nordic Master Programme forms part of the Nordic globalisation initiative. The aim is to strengthen the Nordic region, improve the competitiveness of the Nordic countries and render the higher education institutions even more attractive to both Nordic and international students. Strengthening the network collaboration among universities in the Nordic countries is a key element. The aim is to establish highly attractive Master programmes through collaboration between different educational institutions or other players in different Nordic countries.

Nordplus

The main objective of Nordplus is to create mobility and network collaboration between the Nordic countries within the educational field. Since 1 January 2008, the Baltic countries have also become a part of Nordplus. Nordplus is seen as an important tool towards strengthening the knowledge and competency development in the Nordic countries and contributing to increased economic development and competitiveness in the Nordic and Baltic regions.

Within higher education, Nordplus is focusing on creating networks among educational institutions in the participating countries to facilitate the exchange of best practice and innovation. This involves a number of activities such as student and teacher exchanges and the development of joint curricula.