By Agnieszka Gautier
Even the most well-intentioned Arctic research can fall short for Indigenous communities. Historically, academic research from dominant cultures has extracted Indigenous Knowledge without adequately considering community participation. The phenomena known as “helicopter or parachute science” refers to researchers flying into distant northern regions, extracting data or stories, and then flying out with little interaction with Indigenous Peoples afterward. In this model, data collection is prioritized over relationship building and equitable partnership. Even in recent decades, researchers have used consent and release forms that effectively signed over documented Indigenous Knowledge to their universities.
More recent initiatives have aimed to include Indigenous voices into Arctic research. In 2016, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) released its 10 big ideas for long-term research and developed the Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) program, which addresses the challenges of a rapidly changing Arctic where temperatures are rising at four times the rate of the global average. Consequently, the Arctic is a hotspot for environmental shifts with rippling effects on its communities.
Iron minerals weather into the watershed of the Saviukviayak River in Alaska's Brooks Range. The Brooks Range is a mountain range in far northern North America stretching some 1130 kilometers (700 miles) from west to east across northern Alaska into Canada's Yukon Territory. — Credit: Rose Cory, 2016
This abstract photograph features cracked lake ice next to sorted circles and polygonal ground near Garmaksla Mountain, Spitsbergen, which is the largest and only permanently inhabited island in the Svalbard archipelago, located in the Arctic Ocean well north of mainland Norway. — Credit: Nil Rodes, 2022
Too often the Arctic is imagined as a barren, uninhabited landscape. The opposite is true. About four million people live in the Arctic, including more than 500,000 Indigenous Peoples with their own languages, cultural practices, and relationships to the land. The Arctic landscape is dynamic, morphing from expansive tundra into rugged mountains with marine ecosystems bleeding into coastal wetlands. From the boreal forests to sea ice, these complex environments require consistent, regular monitoring to better understand the changes unfolding.
In 2021, the NNA-Community Office (CO) was established to help coordinate multiple projects, build lasting partnerships, and offer resources and opportunities for knowledge exchange. The central office is based at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder with partner locations at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The NNA-CO supports the goals of NNA through communication, coordination, education, and outreach. Though the NNA program has not accepted new proposals since 2023, the NNA-CO continues to support currently funded projects. Without continued funding, however, the NNA program is nearing an end.
A different approach
An integral component of the NNA-CO is to take a different approach to Arctic research. Nikoosh Carlo, a co-principal investigator (co-PI) for the Community Office and the founder of CNC North Consulting, explains, “So maybe we’re having a cup of tea at the kitchen table, or we’re cutting fish, or we’re doing some other thing that some might think is not related to research itself, but it's really related to building the relationship to say, ‘Well, what are some things that we can work on together? Where do our interests align?’”
Fish racks tower over a row of red buildings on stilts in the Lofoten Islands in the Norwegian Arctic. — Credit: Anna Lena Bercht, 2015
Northeast Arctic cod (Gadus morhua) dries in the cold air and wind in the Lofoten Islands in the Norwegian Arctic. — Credit: Anna Lena Bercht, 2015
Carlo believes that fostering relationships needs to occur even before a research proposal is submitted. As part of the US NSF’s approach to long-term research, the NNA-CO has supported planning grants. While not unique to NNA, these grants have helped broaden the awareness of the importance of building relationships before beginning this type of work. “In order to solve these complex problems in the Arctic, it’s going to need all different types of information,” Carlo added. Working with communities whose knowledge is rooted in millennia of experience on these lands is key to building a more holistic understanding of Arctic change. Carlo has personal experience behind different ways of knowing and learning beyond academia.
Though Carlo grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska, her ancestral roots run deep into the interior of Alaska along the Yukon River. “My experience with learning and interacting with other people is multi-generational,” Carlo said. Learning involves a lot of watching, listening, and doing. As a child, sitting on the floor while Elders gathered at the kitchen table, Carlo learned to be present. “At some point, you may ask a question or without even knowing when, you become part of the process of learning,” she added. “So, it’s a combination of trying and doing things, even if you’re going to get it wrong. It’s the act of just trying to do it that matters.” Carlo sees parallels between her childhood experience and how the NNA-CO should function.
That different approach comes down to coproduction or cocreation: different groups working together with an understanding of their respective responsibilities and goals, grounded in mutual respect. Carlo described coproduction as taking the time to sit down and design what the relationship should be and what the expectations are for roles and responsibilities. “It’s really asking someone to just be an informed good person,” said NSIDC researcher Matthew Druckenmiller, the Community Office Director. “Show up, involve people, see value in difference. In many ways, it’s just common sense. It makes more sense, though, when you see where we’ve made progress and where we still have a lot of progress to do.”
Children run on boardwalks in the remote Alaska community of Kongiganak. — Credit: Amanda Byrd, 2018
Frost and snow immerse a playground in the middle of winter in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. — Credit: Mia Bennett, 2020
Nothing about us without us
One of the NNA-CO's major efforts is to bring people together in different ways. Rather than individual researchers presenting their work, the NNA-CO strives toward a mix of dialogue and discussion, offering panel or teaching sessions for stronger participant engagement.
For example, during the Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW), which took place in March 2025 in Boulder, Colorado, the NNA-CO supported and co-hosted the Indigenous Pavilion, where participants could gather in a more intimate setting. The summit brought more than 800 researchers and Indigenous experts, focused on developing a strategy for the next decade of Arctic research. The pavilion offered a place where meaningful connections could be made, which can be difficult in lecture-based, large conferences. The structure featured two interwoven tents with an outdoor firepit to gather around. In the evenings, singing, dancing, and food sharing helped build connections among attendees. As the summit concluded, the Indigenous participants and supporters came together to hold up a banner stating, a phrase that captures a grounding principle for research in Indigenous homelands: Nothing about us without us.
Druckenmiller believes it is a profound statement and speaks to how research in the past often excluded these voices. “Even projects that had immediate relevance and could benefit Arctic communities rarely delivered results back to the people who need it the most,” Druckenmiller said. “So, if you're trying to support, whether you call it adaptation or resilience or just informed planning, it really requires the solutions being sustainable in the community, culturally appropriate, place based.” But that requires a longer-term perspective than a typical three-year grant allows.
Druckenmiller emphasizes that there is no substitute for time. To truly engage on a community level requires tremendous commitment. However, research positions are often not designed to sustain long-term projects. “I think there are ways of improving upon this model,” Druckenmiller said, “and I think the Community Office has shed light on that in a lot of ways.” Coproduction is essential, and the NNA-CO has embraced that concept, supporting progress through their relationship-building approach at conferences such as ASSW.
In March 2026, at the ASSW in Aarhus, Denmark, the NNA-CO again supported a team that created an Indigenous Pavilion modeled on the one in Colorado. “The pavilion made us feel at home again,” said Indigenous scholar Inga Hensen. “To show our cultures with singing and ceremonies made us feel like yes, even though there is a summit about the Arctic we can go back to our roots, and within seconds we can adapt to the mainstream way of western society conference.” Another Indigenous scholar Vera Kuklina said, “The Pavilion provided me with the unique opportunity to meet, learn from, and build relations with Arctic scholars, artists, and knowledge holders across the whole Arctic. I’m inspired by our Indigenous scholars who walk two worlds and bring together the best of them.”
The next NNA Annual Community Meeting will be held in September 2026 in Fairbanks, Alaska, focusing on “Living with Change.”
Identifying our legacy
With less than three years of funding remaining, the NNA-CO is looking to the future. Kuklina said, “I greatly appreciate the efforts and dedication of our allies who in the current situation of shrinking funding and public pressure keep supporting us in all endeavors.” Without a dedicated funding stream, however, projects built around coproduction of knowledge may be harder to develop and sustain.
As active NNA projects wind down, the Community Office will eventually do the same, raising a question about its legacy. “I like to say its legacy will be the people,” Carlo said. “The people it brought in to have conversations around what it means to work co-creatively. What does it mean to consider knowledges that are different and more diverse than academically trained science? What does it mean for institutions to structure their organization to support this work? I think the Community Office has illustrated these questions more clearly.”
Sámi scientist and leader Gunn-Britt Retter contributes to a discussion at the Indigenous Pavilion at the 2026 Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) in Aarhus, Denmark. — Credit: Kari Fannar Larusson, 2026
Unangax̂ scholar and dancer Haliehana Alaĝum Ayagaa Stepetin performs at the Indigenous Pavilion at ASSW 2026 in Aarhus, Denmark. — Credit: Kari Fannar Larusson, 2026
The answers are only beginning to take shape at some institutions, but growing awareness that the NNA initiative can provide greater value than the sum of its individually funded projects has already left a mark. As Carlo put it, “We can work together and consider different perspectives, different types of knowledge, including Indigenous Knowledge that is deeply rooted to a place and over generations, to drive research questions and to then know how to apply the research results on the backend.”
Druckenmiller hopes that part of the Community Office’s legacy will be the ability to demonstrate what has come out of this research and investment. “We want to be able to revisit what we’ve done here and look at how career trajectories have shifted or who’s still engaged a few years down the road,” he said. To do this, the NNA-CO is developing an evaluation framework to share NNA results and lessons with NSF leadership, policymakers, and Indigenous organizations. Druckenmiller added, “This detailed accounting will catalog what was realized with this $150 million investment, and hopefully it will provide a bit of a roadmap for future research investments.”
But as Carlo sees it, the Community Office’s most enduring legacy may ultimately be simpler: the people and relationships it brought together.