This chapter presents a brief history of how NordForsk’s research program the Responsible Development of the Arctic came to be launched. After 2011, when Nordic cooperation on Arctic issues was first raised, a range of preparatory and planning activities were organized by NordForsk. Four years later, these resulted in support for four Centres of Excellence with the highest budget so far allocated to a NordForsk research program. The chapter begins with an analysis of what was the state of science and society, both in the Nordic region and beyond, when the program was initiated. It then provides an overview of the essential features of the processes and organizational arrangements that led to the launch of the program. The analysis is focused on what made it possible for NordForsk to produce integrated knowledge of relevance that would provide a better understanding of the situation in the Arctic. It is argued that four cornerstones constituted the basis for accomplishing this. These were: (1) Key actors in the Nordic region and beyond who had started to realize that increased incentives for research cooperation across borders were needed; (2) There was dialogue and commitment to take joint action between policymakers in the Nordic research and political arenas; (3) Needs-driven and fundamental research started to be seen as two sides of the same coin rather than competing approaches; and (4) There was careful management of the processes from planning, to the production of new knowledge. Still another factor of critical importance was the work done by professional and dedicated people e.g. administrators, experts, advisors etc., who maintained pressure for reaching the goal of securing new knowledge of high scientific quality and relevance to change in and beyond the Arctic region.