How the Northern Periphery responded to COVID-19: a success story of cohesive working - 14WS21658

When Europe found itself in lockdown in early 2020, a group of experts from Europe's Northern Periphery decided to work together to better understand what could be done in response to the COVID-19 crisis. This interactive workshop will present the results and facilitate a discussion on collaborative research which has been carried out in 12 countries looking at: clinical aspects, mental health, technology, community response, and economic and emerging issues in our remote and rural regions.

This session will showcase a hugely successful cohesive and collaborative approach to tackling a major health and social issue. The Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme (NPA) COVID-19 response group includes over 130 experts from across the nine partner countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Faroes, Iceland, Greenland, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland) as well as the USA, Canada and New Zealand. This group, which did not exist prior to the pandemic, has shown how quickly people can react in a crisis by coming together and working for the greater good. Since March 2020, seven projects have been funded and have recently concluded, producing findings, recommendations and a wealth of new knowledge that can be disseminated across Europe. The projects looked at the clinical aspects, mental health, technology solutions, community response, economic impacts and emerging issues in our remote and rural regions, focusing on what lessons can be learnt for the future.