Established with the support of Arctic Indigenous Scholar, Dr Heather Gordon, the UArctic Thematic Network on Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) and Biodiversity Education across the Arctic Circle (COIL@UArctic) was endorsed in 2024.
By Izzy Crawford, Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Collaborative Online International Learning and Biodiversity Education across the Arctic Circle (COIL@UArctic), Associate Dean, Aberdeen Business School, Robert Gordon University
Elina Oksanen, Vice-Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Collaborative Online International Learning and Biodiversity Education across the Arctic Circle (COIL@UArctic), Professor, University of Eastern Finland
Since then, it has made connections between universities in the Circumpolar North and Global South and has created a wealth of resources to promote and facilitate inclusive approaches to COIL focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
COIL is an approach to teaching and learning that has grown in importance since the COVID-19 pandemic. Student teams from more than one country and more than one university use freely available platforms like Zoom to work on a collaborative project together. These projects are often interdisciplinary and address big global challenges like climate change. COIL projects develop students’ digital, intercultural, problem-solving and interpersonal skills, and offer an opportunity to work alongside students anywhere in the world, without the complexity, cost, and carbon footprint of air travel.
One of the Thematic Network Leads, Dr Izzy Crawford from Robert Gordon University (RGU) in Aberdeen, completed a PhD in this area in June 2025. She believes it is more important than ever for universities to create opportunities for students to learn that we have more similarities than differences with people in other parts of the world, and sharing different perspectives and working collaboratively can improve the quality of problem-solving and decision-making.
It was a great honour for the Thematic Network to be invited to run a master class and workshop on COIL at the Kathmandu University School of Education in April 2025. The participants shared their perspectives on COIL and how it might benefit students across the Hindu Kush region which has much in common with the Arctic. This visit challenged some of the underlying assumptions of COIL and opened critical discussion about globalization, dominant knowledge systems, and digital inclusion within emerging experiential pedagogy.
In the last twelve months, the Thematic Network has presented its work at conferences in Reykjavík, Toulouse, Bodø, Helsinki, and Gothenburg. RGU recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR), enabling academic collaboration between the UN and the COIL@UArctic Thematic Network. Next year, the Thematic Network will explore how COIL can be made more inclusive and meaningful for Indigenous Peoples living and studying in Greenland and Norway.
The Thematic Network has also delivered several biodiversity courses which have a COIL component. University of Eastern Finland has co-created multidisciplinary online courses on biodiversity and nature-based solutions in collaboration with researchers and teachers from different scientific backgrounds and institutions. The open-access versions for these courses – Biodiversity.now A and Nature Based Solutions – are freely available for everybody and address several important issues from the Arctic environment.
To learn more and get involved in COIL@UArctic, please contact Dr Izzy Crawford at i.c.crawford@rgu.ac.uk or Professor Elina Oksanen at elina.oksanen@uef.fi
UArctic Thematic Networks are independent and thematically focused networks of experts in specific areas of northern relevance. They collaborate in developing research, implementing educational activities, and strengthening knowledge exchange across the circumpolar region.
