How to get politicians, business people, civil servants, members of nongovernmental organizations and researchers discussing the European North together? This was the question that lay behind the holding of an international conference, entitled Barents Region Today - Dreams and Realities, in Rovaniemi, Finland, in September 1997. This volume seizes the spirit of Rovaniemi meeting by being able to present all of the texts of the plenary Political Forum and the Research Forum, as well as most of the presentetions from Business Forum.