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Polar Programme
The programme has a holistic and interdisciplinary approach. This includes the following fields of expertise:

1) Arctic Environmental - and Climate Policy Issues
2) Arctic Geopolitics: International Governance, Political - and Military Strategy
3) Arctic Infrastructure: Technical Issues, Crew Training and Competance Requirements, Arctic Ports, Search and Rescue and Communications
4) Arctic MarineTransport: Shipping and alternative modes of transport
5) Arctic Marine Insurance
6) Legal, Jurisdictional and Human Rights Issues

Staff
The Polar Regions Programme can draw on a Staff of experts with up to 30 years of experience on northern and Arctic affairs as well as on an Affiliated Faculty of some 19 of the world's leading experts in the fields on which Ocean Futures concentrate. This includes working with leading research institutions in Canada, Finland, Russia and the United States and the United Kingdom.

Current Projects of the Polar Programme
The Shipping in Arctic Waters project is a study of the comparative advantages of using various alternative sailing routes in the Arctic oceans. The focus is on the Northeast Passage of which the Northern Sea Route is a major part of, the Northwest Passage and the Trans Polar Passage running through the Central Arctic Ocean. The study identifies business opportunities in the Arctic and assesses the role the shipping sector itself might play in creating business opportunities in northern areas in particular. The project was developed by Ocean Futures in collaboration with Centre for High North Logistics. Ocean Futures was the lead executing and managing institution of the project which started in January 2009 and was finished in May 2010

Past Projects of the Polar Programme
Ocean Futures finished a study of the Unopened Areas in the North for the Norwegian Oil Industry Association in February 2009. The study focuses on Jan Mayen, Svalbard, the disputed area and Barents Sea North - and covers the resource basis and environmental, legal and political conditions.

Six policy papers on the northern areas, commissioned by the Norwegian Atlantic Committee, were released in January 2009 and are available in printed and electronic versions. In the process of writing two of the papers Ocean Futures collaborated with Russian researchers from the Central Marine Research and Design Institute (CNIIMF) in St Petersburg.

The NATO meeting in Oslo 26-27 April 2007: Ocean Futures supplied the Norwegian Atlantic Committee with several factual studies and maps of the northern areas. Upon registration the four hundred journalists that covered the conference were given copies of the 10 studies. The maps of the northern areas and Northern Norway were available in electronic and printed format.

A report on The Barents Sea boundary negotiations was delivered to the Research Section of the Norwegian Parliament in November 2007.

Ocean Futures was a collaborative partner of the Norwegian Confederation of Enterprise Annual Conference in January 2006 which focused on the northern areas. Fourteen fact based studies and eight boundary and resource maps were produced for the conference. About one thousand executives and decision-makers from the private sector, government, and academia participated in the conference.