The meeting gives the opportunity for all institutions offering, or wanting to offer, Circumpolar Studies to learn from the experiences of the University of Nordland and reach a common understanding on program delivery. Marit Sundet, the regional Circumpolar Studies coordinator at UiN has conducted these annual partner meetings with Russian partners since 2009. All institutions offering BCS have signed an agreement outlying the requirements for program delivery and participation in coordination. The Russian higher education system has now implemented bachelor and master's degrees in their programs and they are particularly interested in using BCS studies as a pilot example for these new degree structures.