POLARIN Webinar Highlights the Future of Virtual Access for Polar Research
POLARIN Webinar Highlights the Future of Virtual Access for Polar Research On April 9, 2026, POLARIN hosted a webinar on the provision of Virtual Access (VA) for polar research infrastructures (RIs). The event focused on how RIs can provide user-friendly, free, and open online access to scientific data, metadata, and data services, aligning with POLARIN’s mission to enhance data discoverability, interoperability, and reuse. During the webinar, participants learned about: The objectives of POLARIN VA, including publishing non-public data, improving FAIR compliance, and aggregating datasets in a standardized way. The benefits of VA compliance for RIs, such as accelerating research, enabling societal applications (e.g., climate models), and increasing competitiveness for future funding. The technical and metadata requirements for making databases VA-compatible, including standardized APIs (OAI-PMH, OGC CSW), metadata models, and best practices for data management. The legal obligations for RIs participating in POLARIN VA and the risks of non-compliance. The webinar also highlighted case studies from observation networks, data infrastructures, and research stations involved in POLARIN, as well as the POLARIN metadata catalogue, which acts as a broker to harvest and enrich metadata without moving the underlying data. You can find the recording of the webinar in our Youtube channel and via this link. The presentation slides are available via the download button below. The webinar was organized by the SIOS Knowledge Centre (SIOS-KC) and ETT on behalf of POLARIN WP4 “Improvement of data services and customised data products” and WP5 “Provision of Virtual Access.” Download