Knowledge creates the future

30.10.19 | News
Undervisning
Photographer
Ritzau Scanpix
The future is not something that just happens. We create it. That is why the Nordic countries work together on the skills of the future. Education and research will form the basis for sustainable development in the well-integrated Nordic region of the future.

On 30 October 2019, the Nordic Council of Ministers for Education and Research (MR-U) presented its new programme for co-operation to the Nordic Council. Covering the period 2019–2023, it seeks to ensure that the Nordic region remains a world leader in knowledge and welfare. 

The Nordic prime ministers’ Vision 2030 is to make the Nordic region the most sustainable and integrated region in the world. The new MR-U programme will help to turn this vision into reality and to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The rapid pace of social change makes education and research essential prerequisites for a positive future. The programme addresses many of the key concepts that will forge the Nordic region of the future – e.g. knowledge, innovation, democratic citizenship, trust, transparency, gender equality, diversity, shared values, well-being and welfare.

The co-operation will be based on flexible, lifelong learning and will focus on everything from basic skills to higher education and adult learning. Pre-school teachers, school teachers and other types of educators are the keys because they prepare people for the society of the future. 

“Teachers have the most important job in society. They shape the future every day,” says the Icelandic Minister of Education, Science and Culture, Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir.

Teachers have the most important job in society. They shape the future every day

Lilja Dögg Alfreðsdóttir, Icelandic Minister for Education, Research and Culture

Nordic co-operation devotes considerable resources to facilitating mobility. Mobility helps us exchange views, learn from each other and understand each others’ languages and cultures, all of which adds to the sense of the Nordic region as a community.

The education ministers and the Nordic Council of Ministers’ culture sector are responsible for co-operation on language work. The programme specifies that they must work together to identify shared Nordic interests in the field of language.

Nordic research collaborations will continue to generate the knowledge of international quality and impact that we need to address the social challenges we face. Nordic research programmes cover everything from climate and the environment to health and welfare, societal security, gender equality, sustainable cities, digitalisation and the study programmes of the future.

“The aim is for the research programmes to support our Vision 2030 of a green, competitive and socially sustainable Nordic region. We must continue to live up to the high ambitions for Nordic co-operation,” says the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers, Paula Lehtomäki.

The aim is for the research programmes to support Vision 2030 of a green, competitive and socially sustainable Nordic region. We must continue to live up to the high ambitions for Nordic co-operation.

Paula Lehtomäki, Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers