The CIRC research is focused on increasing the knowledge about Arctic and alpine climate ecosystems, for better understanding of climate related impacts on subarctic and arctic environments, both in terrestrial (land based) and aquatic ecosystems.

Within the field of arctic ecology CIRC researchers conduct projects about how the tree line is affected by climate change; how reindeers influence Fell vegetation, and the spread of fish species in lakes and watercourses – historically as well as in the light of recent climate change.

[1][2] In 2016 CIRC was granted 37 million SEK over five years by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation for the project "Climate change induced regime shifts in northern lake ecosystems", with Jan Karlsson as principal investigator.

[3] As of 2017 three young researchers at CIRC are also appointed Wallenberg Academy Fellows – a career programme, initiated by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in close collaboration with five royal academies and sixteen universities in Sweden, that provides long-term funding for the most promising young researchers of all disciplines to develop their projects.

Nuolja is a mountain which overlooks Abisko and Lake Tornetrask, and features an ecological altitudinal transect extending from the summit to the base, first established by Thore C. E. Fries, Swedish botanist (1886-1930).