On September 24, our Project Manager Veronica Willmott presented POLARIN at the side event “Polar oceans and climate: Advancing synergies for long-term global collaboration”, organized as part of the 2025 All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA) Forum in Brussels. The Forum this year was hosted by the European Commission.

During her presentation, Veronica highlighted POLARIN’s mission to provide free-of-charge transnational access to polar research infrastructures for scientists worldwide. The event concluded with a Call for Action to the AAORIA partners. Both the Call for Action and the meeting report can be accessed here.

“An absolute success story in EU funding -the transnational access projects- not only in the poles, but also in the ocean and on land. Something that really brought us (scientists and experts), closer together.” Nicole Biebow at the AAORIA Forum 2025

On September 26, the forum session “Our Linkages with the Polar Seas” opened by Lena Buth, PhD student at AWI and POLARIN team member, who delivered an inspiring talk on the future of polar regions and polar research through the eyes of an early-career ocean professional. Her talk starts at 12:09:17 in the recording.  

The project coordinator Nicole Biebow reflected on the challenges of sharing information and research infrastructures. She highlighted lessons from the first POLARIN call, which exceeded expectations with nearly 100 proposal submissions showcasing the importance of transnational access to research infrastructures. You can watch Nicole’s response in the session “Our linkages with the polar seas” at 12:40:38 in the recording.

Finally, Nicole and Veronica had the opportunity to speak with James Morrison, the new Director for Healthy Planet at the European Commission on topics including polar research infrastructures.