The conference continues and develops a project that the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies initiated in 2010, aiming at investigating, comparing and describing the relations, encounters, intersections, confluences, mutual influences and/or parallels between the Nordic and Baltic Sea areas, on the one hand, and the Black Sea region, on the other hand. The project was structured in annual international conferences usually taking place in late May. Thus, the first conference, entitled “Romania and Lithuania in the Interwar International Relations: Bonds, Intersections and Encounters” was held on 19-21 May 2010 and concentrated, as the title suggests, on the present and historical relations between two countries belonging to these two areas. The second and the third editions of the annual ARSBN conference enlarged their scope, being entitled “The Black Sea and The Baltic Sea Regions: Confluences, influences and crosscurrents in the modern and contemporary ages” (May 20-22, 2011) and respectively “European Networks: the Balkans, Scandinavia and the Baltic World in a Time of Economic and Ideological Crisis” (May 25-27, 2012).

During its three editions, the ARSBN conference addressed fundamental problems within the current agenda of the Nordic, Baltic and Black sea states and contributed with fresh ideas and innovative research results to the general knowledge in the scientific field. Moreover, the conference advanced draft proposals useful to the European decision-makers of different fields.

While the participants to the first two editions of the conference concentrated rather on the historical dimension of the relations, the third edition brought together specialists from various fields (political science, economics, IR, minority studies etc.) and addressed, besides the historical aspect of relations, aspects relevant to the present time, i.e. the current global economic crisis, the Balkan organized crime in Nordic Europe, the minorities in the Baltic Sea area and in the Balkans.

The 2013 conference invites applications from consecrated and young specialists, theorists and practitioners in the most various fields: education, cultural studies, history, IR, political science, economics etc. The 2013 edition of the conference aims at investigating, but also encouraging the intra- and inter- regional exchanges and cooperation.

The conference has developed very fast, each edition bringing together more participants, well known specialists in their fields, from over 20 countries and over 35 institutions. At its third edition, the conference reached a high level of quality, becoming already a very important event in the field of Nordic and Baltic studies.