The Barents Region is a name given, by advocates of establishing international cooperation after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the land along the coast of the Barents Sea, from Nordland county in Norway to the Kola Peninsula in Russia and beyond all the way to the Ural Mountains and Novaya Zemlya, and south to the Gulf of Bothnia of the Baltic Sea and the great lakes Ladoga and Onega.

Among the projects is the Barents Road from Bodø in Norway through Haparanda in Sweden and Finland to Murmansk in Russia.

The regional cooperation was formally opened on 11 January 1993, initiated by Norway under foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg.

The Barents cooperation area is 1,750,000 square kilometres (680,000 sq mi), and the population numbers 5.3 million inhabitants.

[3] Education and research play a key part in the economic growth but they are an important factor if the Barents region is to build up a sufficient base for innovation and information work.

The 2014 – 2018 programme sees that the cooperation between the institutions of higher education and research and the public and private sector is of great importance.

A good transportation network, innovative and vigorous economy are called out to meet tackle these problems.

These include the International Barents Secretariat (IBS) and a Working Group of the Indigenous Peoples (WGIP) and lastly the Joint committee on Rescue Cooperation.