For cultural, geographical and historical reasons, the Nordic countries decided to launch a platform of cooperation between the Nordic Forestry, Veterinary and Agricultural universities (NOVA). NOVA was established in 1995, and has been financed on the basis of funds provided by the various university members.

The institutions behind NOVA sought to create a joint platform in order to achieve the following:

• to develop means of and tools for cooperation in scientific areas where the resources of each individual university member are too limited;
• to enhance the quality and broaden the scope of research, research education, teaching and the learning experience of the students;
• to deal more effectively with the ongoing expansion of the field of scientific knowledge and the need for further specialization;
• to promote greater resouce-efficiencey and to reduce teaching costs;
• to increase the international competitiveness of member institutions in their spheres of competence;
• to become a more proficient partner for dialogue with relevant sectors, including industry.