Background and objectives

Many countries attach significant importance to transborder cooperation initiatives, with transboundary regions seen as a key policy instrument for supporting sustainable development along their frontier. As such, transboundary regions entail a lot more than just a policy tool. Policies may act as an important driver of regionalisation, however the regions itself result from longer historical processes and from top-down dynamics. Fit and interplays between these drivers and existing international, national and subnational policies and governance frameworks represent an important dimension of the success of neighbourhood policies, and are important for achieving sustainable development goals nationally and beyond. To make it more complex, cross-border regions are also often homes to challenging biophysical, ethnic and cultural contexts, as well as uneasy socio-economic situations. International scholarly literature and policy documents do not offer plausible solutions to these problems and challenges. Organising this conference, we have an ambition to fill some of knowledge gaps, or at least to contribute towards this. The geographical focus is on mountain regions and Arctic, in recognition of frontier nature of such areas, and due to high vulnerability of their ecological and socio-ecological systems. Relevant contributions from other areas are welcome as well, especially where methodology or lessons learned are relevant for our core geographical focus.

Key topics

We are calling for paper and session proposals addressing the conference theme, where relevant, in a broader international context, or based on local case studies. Priority will be given to the presentations and papers related to high mountainous and arctic regions. 

1. Natural and ethnic-cultural values of transboundary regions; issues of conservation of biodiversity, ecosystems, and self-identity under the global changes. 
2. Dynamics of natural characteristics in relation to global changes. 
3. Socio-economic and geopolitical aspects of transboundary regions. 
4. Influence of natural transformations on socio-economic and ethnic-cultural processes in the transboundary context. 
5. Models of transboundary regional development under the global changes. 

The work of the conference will be organized in the form of a plenary session, breakout sessions, round tables, and discussion platforms. 

Thematic roundtables

• Transboundary interactions of countries and regions: models, opportunities, and prospects.  
• Potential for the development of transboundary cooperation in the Great Altai region.  
• Areas of high conservation importance in the transboundary regions.