Secure Kvarken

Strengthening long-term municipal cooperation and knowledge exchange in the Kvarken region, focusing on security, resilience and preparedness.

  • Duration: 1.9.2026–28.2.2029
  • Interreg Aurora Project Webpage
  • Lead Partner: Regional Council of South Ostrobothnia, Finland 
  • Partners:
    • Regional Council of Ostrobothnia (Finland)
    • SEAMK Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (Finland)
    • University of Vaasa (Finland) 
    • Region Västerbotten (Sweden)
    • County Administrative Board of Västernorrland (Sweden)
    • Mid Sweden University (Sweden)
  • Funding programme: Interreg Aurora 2021-2027 
  • Total budget: 1.54 million euros

The Project in Short

Geopolitical changes, climate impacts, energy disruptions and cyber security threats can trigger severe crises. As these risks grow, security and resilience have become central to strategic planning and everyday life. Finland and Sweden have strong national crisis response systems, in which municipalities face both shared challenges and needs specific to local service provision. Although the Kvarken region has a long history of cooperation, also during crisis, there is currently no broad, structured framework for municipal level cooperation.

In the Kvarken region, the project

  • focuses on security, resilience and preparedness
  • strengthens long-term municipal cooperation and knowledge exchange on the municipal level
  • complements and enhances the formal responsibilities municipalities already have within existing preparedness and resilience frameworks

The project activities include

  • an analysis of the current structures and frameworks in both countries – enabling peer learning and knowledge exchange based on identified challenges, needs and good practices
  • introducing new tools and methods to engage citizens
  • collecting relevant information to improve knowledge management
  • a new cross-border mechanism that unites municipalities, enabling them to jointly strengthen their capacity to ensure residents’ safety and maintain high levels of preparedness and resilience
  • developing scenarios of crisis situations to simulate communication models in solving them, using digital tools
  • creating a joint roadmap, which outlines shared initiatives and cooperation models that participating municipalities commit to for advancing long-tern security, preparedness and resilience across the Kvarken region

Project meetings

The first project meeting will take place in Seinäjoki, 29.-30.9.2026

Project news

Here we gather news from the project’s progress.

Documents produced by the project

Here you can find documents produced by the project.