The meeting was chaired by the Swedish delegation and all participating countries were represented on the day. A summary of the MC decisions is provided below.

Thematic distribution of approved projects

The MC looked at how approved projects are distributed across the programme priorities and specific objectives, to identify those topics that so far have attracted few applications. Based on this information, the MC decided to increase project development efforts for those topics where more applications are needed, and limit the themes already well addressed, for the Fourth call for projects.

Project decisions

The Monitoring Committee decided on the projects submitted in the Third call for proposals. The MC approved the following 2 Main projects: NPA0500123 OatFrontiers and NPA0500141 NoBiCC. As a result, the allocation of the total available funds reached 32%.

Upcoming Calls for project proposals

The MC agreed on the Terms of Reference (ToRs) of the Fourth Call for projects, open from 11th October until 2nd February, and on the schedule of the Fifth call, planned to open from 11th June 2024 until 30th September 2024. In addition, the committee agreed not to launch any preparatory calls until their next meeting, in May 2024.

Arctic Cooperation update

The MC agreed to continue a close collaboration with the Interreg Aurora programme under the "Interreg Arctic Cooperation" initiative. The programmes will jointly organise events, facilitate project synergies and clustering, potentially opening a first clustering call in Spring 2025, and continue exchange of expertise at programme management level.

Programme management matters

On the agenda of this meeting were also several updates concerning programme implementation in the area of programme evaluation, communication, project development support and observers to the MC. The MC took note of the updates and agreed with the work plan proposed.

The Monitoring Committee will reconvene on 29th May 2024 in Finland, location to be defined.