Among those present at the opening of the Council meeting in Rovaniemi on June 8th were Morten Høglund, chair of the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians and Odd Rogne of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). Morten Høglund noted in his opening address that, "we must make sure that the intellectual infrastructure is in place in order to create green growth." AMAP's Odd Rogne outlined the organization's early role in UArctic's foundation, while further confirming the partnership between UArctic and the Arctic Council working groups, particularly through the use of their reports as educational resources for UArctic students.

Reaffirming Finland's strong support of UArctic and its administration, Anita Lehikoinen of the Ministry of Education states in her opening remarks to the Green Growth and the Arctic Seminar that, "cooperation, networking, serving the community and being responsive to local and regional needs are the cornerstones for the Finnish state and are combined in UArctic." These sentiments were echoed by Finland's Arctic Ambassador Hannu Halinen. In addition Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, sent written greetings to UArctic, bolstering its commitment to sustainable development in the region.

The University of the Arctic welcomes this support from its key regional partners, and looks forward to working with them to fulfill our common goals.