Changing Arctic: a fireside chat hosted by Hertford College MCR

30 June 2026

Kim Salmi, the Managing Director of Helsinki Shipyard, spoke on the Changing Arctic and Shipbuilding at Hertford College on 11 June 2026. He was joined by Erik-Jan Bos, Senior Advisor of NORDUnet and Co-chair of Polar Connect Executive Team, and Ingrid Sollid Heggstad, an MSc Environmental Change and Management candidate. The discussion was moderated by Hertford’s Anniki Mikelsaar, DPhil candidate, Oxford Internet Institute, whose report on the event follows.

‘Changing Arctic: Shipbuilding, Connectivity, Environment’

The discussion explored the intersection of human development in the Arctic with environmental change; how receding ice is making development in the region a possibility, translating into demand for more icebreaker vessels for access, and cross-Arctic network infrastructure for connectivity.

Reflecting on the long history of Helsinki Shipyard, Kim Salmi traced a line of Finnish icebreaker construction stretching back over a century: ‘Finland has been building these vessels for over a hundred years. Its first icebreaker, Mercator, entered service as early as 1910.’ From those origins, the Shipyard has grown into a hub of innovation for icebreaker design and construction responsible for roughly half of all icebreakers in service today. The discussion highlighted that shipbuilding is more than a technical undertaking, one carrying political and ethical dimensions, building vessels that endure for the next fifty years, safely and sustainably.

Joining online, Erik-Jan Bos cast light on what Arctic change means for the prospects of future global network infrastructure. ‘With 500+ submarine cables worldwide in operation today, the Central Arctic Ocean does not have any submarine cables; our preparations for Polar Connect aim to build one, on a short route between the Northern Nordics and East Asia,’ he explained, with recent instability around Red Sea routes meaning that envisioning new projects for how to lay cables across the Arctic is an increasingly critical matter in the coming decades. Ingrid Sollid Heggstad noted how Arctic ice is changing in character, from multi-year ice to thinner seasonal ice, affecting both shipping and the cable-laying that relies on icebreakers.

Bringing together voices from across disciplines, followed by a discussion with the audience, this discussion exemplified the intellectual richness of the Oxford community in its collective effort to address a decade-defining question: how the Arctic is changing, and what that change means for the rest of the world.