Project duration 09/2022 – 09/2026

Since the beginning of MARGISTAR Cost Action project there were four Management Committee (MC) meetings and several smaller Working Groups (WGs) meetings organized either in person or online to stimulate more than 100 MARGISTAR international scientists‘ community to network and initiate research together.

Our team mainly works in Working Group 2 (WG2) Knowledge synthesis and co-creation with stakeholders focusing on periphery traps (problems), visions of post-marginalized mountainous areas (visions of desirable futures), and transition pathways (solutions).

In May 2023, there were the first in-person meeting in remote Lappish towns of Inari and Utsjoki hosted by LUKE, the Natural Resources Institute of Finland. MARGISTAR´s group of 28 international researchers and experts discussed the project´s aim of fostering sustainable development and empowerment in often overlooked mountainous areas. Dr. Stanislava Brnkalakova, as MC member, and Prof. Tatiana Kluvankova, as experienced researcher in social innovations in marginalized areas, also joined this meeting and initiated the future research ideas.

Fig. 1 MARGISTAR consortium working at Sámi Parliament (Author: Mikko Jokinen, LUKE)

The trip in Finland also allowed MARGISTAR members to explore the remote regions of Finnish Lapland, which have historically grappled with isolation and, in particular, political neglect.

Fig. 2 Meeting with the local Sámi community representatives (Author: Stanislava Brnkalakova)

In October 2023 during WG2 meeting organized in Turkey in hybrid format, self-organized team work among WG2 members was initiated to connect people with common interests and to catalyse the work on scientific papers. Dr. Stanislava Brnkalakova participated online.

Fig. 3 Online discussion about periphery traps (Author: Stanislava Brnkalakova)