Five Nordic life science organisations from Sweden, Finland and Norway have joined forces to make continuous learning for life science professionals easier by facilitating courses and material digitally.

At the same time, the project aims to adapt national courses to a Nordic and Baltic audience.

“Each of us are small countries, through this collaboration we can provide more high-quality learning opportunities for life science professionals and for a broader Nordic-Baltic target group, instead of reinventing the wheel,” says Hanna Rickberg, Head of Education at the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Part of the Nordplus Horizontal programme

As part of the Nordplus Horizontal programme, educational events, training workshops and practical courses directed towards the life science industry will be made available online. The life science professionals can participate via a live video stream or pre-recorded material, making learning accessible to those on-site or on remote locations and in other countries.

The five partners in the project are the Swedish Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Läkemedelsakademin), LIF – the Research Based Pharmaceutical Industry in Sweden (Läkemedelsindustriföreningen), Pharmaceutical Information Centre in Finland (PIC), The Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Norway (LMI – Legemiddelsindustrin) and Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

The project has received support from Nordplus to facilitate the sharing of educational resources across national borders in the Nordics.

“We are intrigued by the opportunity to explore how we can establish synergies across the Nordic markets when it comes to meeting educational needs within the Life Science sector. The underlying assumption is that the needs are similar. Networking for future collaboration may present as a secondary benefit,” says Dag Larsson, Senior Policy Manager, LIF – the Research Based Pharma Industry in Sweden.

More competitive in the global market

“Life science is a global business and cross-border collaboration is important, in particular for small countries in the Nordics,” says Bjørn Klem, general manager at Oslo Cancer Cluster Incubator.

Klem hopes that the project will benefit both Nordic innovation and competition. “The outcome of this project should be to share educational resources to increase competence in the Nordic innovation environments. This will make innovation in life science more competitive in the global market.”

The Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry in Norway (LMI), one of the five partners in the project, also stresses the importance of Nordic collaboration for the life science industry. Marie Svendsen Aase, project coordinator LMI, puts it this way: “We see Nordic cooperation as an essential value to the medical development that is now taking place with both personalised medicine and building a life science industry across the Nordic countries.”

The project will run until 30 April 2021

The project will run until 30 April 2021 and the five partners will share their courses via their websites and social media channels.

“Nordplus collaboration provides us an excellent opportunity to expand our training services to the Nordic market and to share knowledge with the other partners,“ says Anja Isoaho, Training Manager at Pharmaceutical Information Centre (Finland).