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Friðrik Thorsson. Photo: IACN
Friðrik Thorsson’s Discussion Reflection
Youth as the Future’s Foremost Stakeholders
We have the pleasure and honour of publishing a reflection on the discussion delivered at the Arctic Frontiers conference. The conference was held in February 2026 in Tromsø, Norway. The discussion was part of the panel session organised by the CAP-SHARE project, entitled ‘Intergenerational Capacity Sharing: The Connection Between Nature and Youth’.
The text was originally written in English.
Discussion Reflection:
Youth as the Future’s Foremost Stakeholders
Friðrik Thorsson
Project Manager & Deputy Director, IACN – Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network
Why I admire this project.
My attendance at the 2026 Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø was marked by the wonderful opportunity granted to me by the CAP-SHARE project team to discuss a matter that is dear to me: ensuring that stakeholder perspectives and values are heard, understood and acted upon by those empowered to make final decisions.
Of course, this is something most people agree is important, at least in principle. However, it is when one looks at the practicalities that things tend to appear amiss. Like in a whispering game, a compounding process runs the risk of losing parts of the bigger picture with each step. Things are lost in translation, overlooked, affected by practical constraints, or are misunderstood or misinterpreted. Resolving this requires taking into account structural aspects relating to the development of effective communities of practice centred on the practical use of frameworks and tools that streamline and empower the knowledge-policy interface – from stakeholders and local communities to scientists, experts and policymakers.
This is where my appreciation for the work that CAP-SHARE does comes into play, as I find that their efforts to empower this process to be crucial for the sort of effective Arctic governance that is so necessary in these rapidly evolving times.
Why this matters to me.
To put into context why this matters to me personally, I will begin by telling you a little bit about myself. I had the privilege of growing up on a rural farm in the valleys of West Iceland. With this privilege came opportunities to surround myself with nature, tend to animals, swim in the river and catch charr. Having no other frame of reference, I took this all for granted. It didn’t come with any awareness – it was just life. Normal stuff.
The moment of realization came when a landmark glacier visible from my valley was declared dead back in 2014; the first to go extinct in Iceland since settlement. The depth of one’s relationship to something rarely ever becomes as apparent as when it has been lost. I realized, in retrospect, that these phenomena which we take for granted as part of normal, daily life are indeed exactly that. My normal – both a fundamental aspect of my identity and the vector through which I perceived reality – suddenly proved to be mortal.
It took a reality check for me to finally realize the fragility of my natural environment – something well understood by the many Arctic, and particularly Indigenous, communities who are even more closely connected and reliant upon it than I ever was. I do not intend to lose yet another piece of it without putting up a fight. I recognize that I have a say in terms of how the ship is steered. But being heard is another thing entirely.
The part I try to play.
Today, I work as project manager for the Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network, an organization based in Akureyri, which serves as Iceland’s hub for Arctic governance and knowledge production. Our close involvement in this process has afforded us the opportunity to observe how the interface operates: what works, what doesn’t, and what often isn’t even considered. I was therefore happy to provide some insight on the first question posed to me in the panel in particular:
What experiences have you had collaborating with researchers, policymakers or authorities? What has worked well, and what needs to change?
I was thankful to receive such a good question. After all, effective capacity-sharing includes learning where processes fail and redesigning them.
In regard to what needs to change, one of the most glaring pitfalls in this process is a far too frequent misalignment between national policies and goals and regional realities. This fragmentation is especially evident in the Arctic and in rural areas. Accordingly, there is a need for a clearer, cross-cutting vision that encompasses all policies. Human realities cannot be reduced to singular concerns and solutions, so there needs to be increased efforts aimed at the mutual alignment of youth, gender, environmental and climate policies, to name but a few.
We note that such alignment, especially for cross-border attempts at governance on a human scale, requires data that is compatible across regions. Moreover, this data needs to be appropriately disaggregated to statistically represent how different strata intersect not only with one another, but also with the environment, in the case of climate change mitigation policy.
Lastly, but perhaps most fundamentally, there needs to be greater awareness of the inherent value of true stakeholder engagement. Capacity-sharing is not simply a transfer of skills from ‘experts’ to a subject group. Every stakeholder – or ‘youth’, as is the case in this project – is an expert on their own lived realities. Therefore, stakeholder engagement must occur right from the very beginning of the policy process. Proper engagement, involvement and tools such as Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) are not mere box-ticking exercises – they are guarantees of efficiency and risk-mitigating factors.
Alongside this acknowledgement comes the need to address the frequent incompatibility between research funding windows and the time required to establish trust and good faith. Resources must also be allocated to provide adequate support and ensure that rights holders, knowledge holders and stakeholders are duly compensated for their participation. This is no pipe dream; it is practically feasible and proven to work.
In your work at the IACN, how has what you mentioned earlier regarding youth participation been put into practice?
A good example of our attempt to actualize the sort of engagement I mentioned – both in terms of what worked and what we learned from it – is our work on the Pan-Arctic Report on Gender Equality in the Arctic. It serves as a good example of what one may expect from the knowledge-policy interface, due to its policy impact. Since its publication through the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group, it has been reflected in subsequent Arctic strategies of Iceland and the Arctic Council, as per the Reykjavík Declaration of 2021.
However, as a case study in process design, it made very genuine efforts to ensure extensive youth engagement. Rather than simple ‘comments at the end’, the report embedded a Youth Advisory Group throughout the process, with talent drawn specifically from the Arctic Youth Network. This included theme selection, chapter review, feedback sessions and representation on the Editorial Committee.
This engagement was a real no-brainer from a research perspective. As a demographic group, youth are crucial to understanding ongoing social processes, regardless of the subject. Even if we were to limit ‘youth’ to the ages of 15-29, this group would still comprise a quarter of the Arctic’s total population. Also, not only is it the strongest predictive group for long-term demographic, mobility and labour trends, but it is also the section of the population in which Indigeneity, gender, geography and opportunity structures intersect in by far the most visible way. And who knows more about such things than those currently experiencing them?
This focus is especially relevant considering the glacial pace at which policy can react to reality. Ten years of engagement, research, deliberation and, finally, policy implementation can feel like the blink of an eye. But to a person just finishing school, such a span of time can easily determine the rest of their life.
The importance of centring policy around youth when it comes to long-term sustainability makes the inherent value of their engagement so readily obvious. As mentioned previously, this value must be reflected in the allocation of resources and direct compensation to the stakeholders with whom one needs to collaborate.
Youth as the Future’s Foremost Stakeholders
We have the pleasure and honour of publishing a reflection on the discussion delivered at the Arctic Frontiers conference. The conference was held in February 2026 in Tromsø, Norway. The discussion was part of the panel session organised by the CAP-SHARE project, entitled ‘Intergenerational Capacity Sharing: The Connection Between Nature and Youth’.
The text was originally written in English.
Discussion Reflection:
Youth as the Future’s Foremost Stakeholders
Friðrik Thorsson
Project Manager & Deputy Director, IACN – Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network
Why I admire this project.
My attendance at the 2026 Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø was marked by the wonderful opportunity granted to me by the CAP-SHARE project team to discuss a matter that is dear to me: ensuring that stakeholder perspectives and values are heard, understood and acted upon by those empowered to make final decisions.
Of course, this is something most people agree is important, at least in principle. However, it is when one looks at the practicalities that things tend to appear amiss. Like in a whispering game, a compounding process runs the risk of losing parts of the bigger picture with each step. Things are lost in translation, overlooked, affected by practical constraints, or are misunderstood or misinterpreted. Resolving this requires taking into account structural aspects relating to the development of effective communities of practice centred on the practical use of frameworks and tools that streamline and empower the knowledge-policy interface – from stakeholders and local communities to scientists, experts and policymakers.
This is where my appreciation for the work that CAP-SHARE does comes into play, as I find that their efforts to empower this process to be crucial for the sort of effective Arctic governance that is so necessary in these rapidly evolving times.
Why this matters to me.
To put into context why this matters to me personally, I will begin by telling you a little bit about myself. I had the privilege of growing up on a rural farm in the valleys of West Iceland. With this privilege came opportunities to surround myself with nature, tend to animals, swim in the river and catch charr. Having no other frame of reference, I took this all for granted. It didn’t come with any awareness – it was just life. Normal stuff.
The moment of realization came when a landmark glacier visible from my valley was declared dead back in 2014; the first to go extinct in Iceland since settlement. The depth of one’s relationship to something rarely ever becomes as apparent as when it has been lost. I realized, in retrospect, that these phenomena which we take for granted as part of normal, daily life are indeed exactly that. My normal – both a fundamental aspect of my identity and the vector through which I perceived reality – suddenly proved to be mortal.
It took a reality check for me to finally realize the fragility of my natural environment – something well understood by the many Arctic, and particularly Indigenous, communities who are even more closely connected and reliant upon it than I ever was. I do not intend to lose yet another piece of it without putting up a fight. I recognize that I have a say in terms of how the ship is steered. But being heard is another thing entirely.
The part I try to play.
Today, I work as project manager for the Icelandic Arctic Cooperation Network, an organization based in Akureyri, which serves as Iceland’s hub for Arctic governance and knowledge production. Our close involvement in this process has afforded us the opportunity to observe how the interface operates: what works, what doesn’t, and what often isn’t even considered. I was therefore happy to provide some insight on the first question posed to me in the panel in particular:
What experiences have you had collaborating with researchers, policymakers or authorities? What has worked well, and what needs to change?
I was thankful to receive such a good question. After all, effective capacity-sharing includes learning where processes fail and redesigning them.
In regard to what needs to change, one of the most glaring pitfalls in this process is a far too frequent misalignment between national policies and goals and regional realities. This fragmentation is especially evident in the Arctic and in rural areas. Accordingly, there is a need for a clearer, cross-cutting vision that encompasses all policies. Human realities cannot be reduced to singular concerns and solutions, so there needs to be increased efforts aimed at the mutual alignment of youth, gender, environmental and climate policies, to name but a few.
We note that such alignment, especially for cross-border attempts at governance on a human scale, requires data that is compatible across regions. Moreover, this data needs to be appropriately disaggregated to statistically represent how different strata intersect not only with one another, but also with the environment, in the case of climate change mitigation policy.
Lastly, but perhaps most fundamentally, there needs to be greater awareness of the inherent value of true stakeholder engagement. Capacity-sharing is not simply a transfer of skills from ‘experts’ to a subject group. Every stakeholder – or ‘youth’, as is the case in this project – is an expert on their own lived realities. Therefore, stakeholder engagement must occur right from the very beginning of the policy process. Proper engagement, involvement and tools such as Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) are not mere box-ticking exercises – they are guarantees of efficiency and risk-mitigating factors.
Alongside this acknowledgement comes the need to address the frequent incompatibility between research funding windows and the time required to establish trust and good faith. Resources must also be allocated to provide adequate support and ensure that rights holders, knowledge holders and stakeholders are duly compensated for their participation. This is no pipe dream; it is practically feasible and proven to work.
In your work at the IACN, how has what you mentioned earlier regarding youth participation been put into practice?
A good example of our attempt to actualize the sort of engagement I mentioned – both in terms of what worked and what we learned from it – is our work on the Pan-Arctic Report on Gender Equality in the Arctic. It serves as a good example of what one may expect from the knowledge-policy interface, due to its policy impact. Since its publication through the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group, it has been reflected in subsequent Arctic strategies of Iceland and the Arctic Council, as per the Reykjavík Declaration of 2021.
However, as a case study in process design, it made very genuine efforts to ensure extensive youth engagement. Rather than simple ‘comments at the end’, the report embedded a Youth Advisory Group throughout the process, with talent drawn specifically from the Arctic Youth Network. This included theme selection, chapter review, feedback sessions and representation on the Editorial Committee.
This engagement was a real no-brainer from a research perspective. As a demographic group, youth are crucial to understanding ongoing social processes, regardless of the subject. Even if we were to limit ‘youth’ to the ages of 15-29, this group would still comprise a quarter of the Arctic’s total population. Also, not only is it the strongest predictive group for long-term demographic, mobility and labour trends, but it is also the section of the population in which Indigeneity, gender, geography and opportunity structures intersect in by far the most visible way. And who knows more about such things than those currently experiencing them?
This focus is especially relevant considering the glacial pace at which policy can react to reality. Ten years of engagement, research, deliberation and, finally, policy implementation can feel like the blink of an eye. But to a person just finishing school, such a span of time can easily determine the rest of their life.
The importance of centring policy around youth when it comes to long-term sustainability makes the inherent value of their engagement so readily obvious. As mentioned previously, this value must be reflected in the allocation of resources and direct compensation to the stakeholders with whom one needs to collaborate.
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