As markets are opening up and capital, talent and other resources are becoming more mobile, the competition for investments in research and innovation has become increasingly fierce and continues to intensify.

Against this background, a case can be made for initiating a joint Nordic effort aimed at profiling the region in the global marketplace in order to attract foreign investments in research and innovation. On a global market, the individual Nordic countries are very small and may find it difficult to make their voices heard. At the same time, the region has a long history of regional collaboration and several collaborative projects and Nordic initiatives are already underway to address the challenges of globalization. While there are certainly differences among the countries, in a global context the similarities are far more important.

Hence, the ambition of the NordForsk policy brief “Branding the Nordic Research and Innovation Area” is two-fold; Firstly, to create a branding methodology which takes the special conditions of the Nordic region and the notion of research and innovation investments as point of departure. Secondly, to put forward a suggestion for a branding strategy, firmly grounded in Nordic strengths and set within the emerging global context of research and innovation investments.