The Online Cold Land Seminar «Japanese-Russian collaboration in the North» took place in September 30^th 2020 as a part of the Northern Forum for Sustainable Development. The event consisted of four sections: The Northern environment; The Northern community; Socio-economic development of the North and the Arctic; Construction technologies and design for cold regions.

Most participants of the seminar were representatives of Russian and Japanese universities and research centers: Hokkaido University, Kioto University, Economic Research Institute for the North-East Asia (ERINA), Moscow State University, Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Siberian Federal University, Far Eastern Federal University, Northern (Arctic) Federal University, North-Eastern Federal University, Russian University of Peoples’ Friendship. However, few companies visited the event: Sojitz Corporation and Yamal-LNG. Participants exchanged the opinions on wide specter of problems on sustainable development of the Arctic and perspectives of Russian-Japanese cooperation in the region. The results of the sections was summarized during plenary session and presented to the administration of the Northern Forum.

Head of the research sector of Khabarovsk State University of Economics and Law «Research Center for SCO and APR» Aleksandr Voronenko took part in the seminar and presented his work about the development of small and medium business in the Eastern (Pacific) Part of the Arctic region. The main idea of his research is that effective entrepreneurship system is one of the basis of sustainable socio-economic development of the region and, at the same time, development of small and medium business, in the conditions of insufficient population, infrastructure and isolation from industrial and economic centers, highly depends on transboundary interregional economic collaboration.

The report was highly estimated by participants of the seminar. The representative of the Arctic center of the Hokkaido University, one of the leaders of the program «Arctic Challenges for Sustainability» (ArCS-II) Juha Saunavaara offered our Research Center to become a co-organizer of the international online conference, dedicated to the issues of socio-economic development of the Arctic and Norht in January 2021.