Dr. Mikhail Prisyazhnyy, member of the UArctic Board of Governors and  a head of North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) Northern Studies Department, and Dr. Claudia Fedorova, member of UArctic Toyon (Council Executive Committee), Chair of the UArctic Nomination Committee and a Head of NEFU English Philology Department, Dr. Ljubov Radnaeva and Dr. Atsuko Sugimoto were present in the meeting.

Dr. Ljubov Radnaeva is the Vice-Chair of the UArctic Council, member of UArctic Toyon (Council Executive Committee), Professor of the Chair of Foreign Languages at Buryat State University in Ulan Ude, Buryatia, Russia. At present,  Dr. Radneva  is lecturing as a visiting professor at NEFU’s Institute of Modern Languages and Regional Studies. She is teaching two courses on Mathematical Methods in Linguistics and Quantitative Linguistics.  Dr. Radnaeva  discusses the feasibility of developing a joint Master Degree program on fundamental and applied linguistics focusing on the documentation of endangered languages.

Dr. Atsuko Sugimoto is a professor of Hokkaido University (UArctic member institution) and the Honorary Professor of the Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University. Atsuko Sugimoto annually gives lectures at NEFU’s Institute of Natural Sciences, together with NEFU graduate students and professors she conducts several research projects, additionally, she has organized several summer schools at NEFU. At the moment, NEFU, Hokkaido, and University of Alaska Fairbanks are working on COPERA project. C Budget of Ecosystems and Cities and Villages on Permafrost in Eastern Russian Arctic (COPERA) is a Russian Foundation for Basic Research and Belmont Forum funded project. The project team together with local communities in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) will create a permafrost, hydrological, and meteorological observing network to estimate CO2 sequestration by the permafrost ecosystem (tundra and taiga) and CO2 emission in cities and villages.  

During the meeting, professors discussed their ongoing research projects and possible ways of cooperation.