If you’d like to share your polar fieldwork experience with fellow early career researchers, apply now to join APECS in developing training material for users of polar research infrastructures.

As part of POLARIN, APECSis inviting early career researchers to contribute to the development of training material (e.g. guidebooks, knowledge articles or visual summaries) on the usage of polar research infrastructures. We envision participating individuals to dedicate 40-60 hours in total, distributed from February to August 2025. You will be working collaboratively in groups with other early career researchers, coordinated by the POLARIN work package team, to shape the scope of the resources and create training content that will be published and openly accessible through an online training platform, hosted by APECS. Your contribution as authors will be publicly acknowledged.

Focus themes of the training material

The training material will initially focus on the following themes and you can indicate which topics you are most interested in as well as suggest additional topics.

• Polar research infrastructures and their environment
• How to plan and conduct a research expedition or fieldwork successfully
• Safety in polar environments and at sea
• How to secure the highest possible level of environmental, ethical and economic sustainability of work in polar regions
• How and where to obtain permits of relevance (including material on the Antarctic Treaty, Arctic governance, national and international regulations of relevance to research in polar regions)
• How to get freight to/from polar research infrastructures and/or install your equipment on research infrastructures
• Scientific instrumentation at polar research infrastructures and how to obtain their data
• Data stewardship

In this process, you have the opportunity to build valuable knowledge through producing training resources that are relevant for potential future teaching and supervision activities. You will also gain experience in the creation and editorial process of training documents.

Application Process

We welcome applicants that already have relevant field experience but also those that are earlier in their career and have not yet had the chance to conduct polar fieldwork themselves. In either case, you will be able to engage in the discussion around the training content – either by sharing your experience or by informing our planning with regards to which questions we should aim to answer in the material.

If you are interested to contribute to the development of POLARIN training material, please submitÂthis application form by 8 January! You can reach out to Axel Schlindwein at the APECS International Directorate (info@apecs.is) with any questions related to this opportunity.

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