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Join the POLARIN Expert Pool! Would you like to join the POLARIN Expert Pool and participate in the review process of proposals submitted to the POLARIN Transnational Access calls? The EU funded project POLARIN – Polar Research Infrastructure Network – is seeking experts from various fields of polar research, from natural sciences to human dimension, to join an international pool of experts to contribute to the scientific evaluation of Transnational Access applications. Volunteer to the POLARIN Expert Pool here and indicate the field of your expertise. How it works? If your expertise matches our needs, the POLARIN Evaluation Secretariat will contact you to invite you for potential review assignment(s).  Invited experts will submit their reviews via secure connection in the POLARIN Transnational Access Platform (POLARIN TAP) on-line system, where guidelines to conduct the reviews will be provided.  The identity of the reviewers is confidential and will not be disclosed to any applicant.  The invited experts also sign a confidentiality clause and a declaration of no conflict of interest prior to their evaluations. The 2nd POLARIN Transnational Access call will be open from the 1st of September until the 30th of October 2025, with scientific evaluations taking place in Novermber-December 2025. The invited experts will be asked to provide reviews of individual applications, presumably requiring altogether one to two hours of their working time. There is no financial compensation for these evaluations, but a certificate will be provided to demonstrate their contribution as Expert Evaluator in POLARIN. In addition, serving as a reviewer allows one to learn what’s new in the field, to develop critical thinking skills essential to research, and to improve one’s own writing. Early Career Researchers including post doctoral fellows are welcome to register.  Since successive (yearly) calls will be issued till the end of the POLARIN project, the Expert Pool will be in function until the end of the project (28th of February 2029), after which it will automatically close and all information in the pool will be deleted. The data submitted by filling the form will only be used for the purpose of volunteering to the POLARIN Expert Pool as a reviewer. Your data will not be disclosed to third parties and you can at any time resign or ask to modify your information by e-mailing to the POLARIN Evaluation Secretariat at polarin_evaluation_secretariat[at]ogs.it

The European Polar Science Week aiming to bring together the European polar science community and reinforce European cooperation for polar science is taking place this week (3-6 September) in Copenhagen. POLARIN is attending this important meeting that presents an important milestone in the cooperation between the European Commission and the European Space Agency.

POLARIN was highlighted during the Parallel Session 7 “Beyond borders: Strengthen global polar research through advanced research infrastructures”, presented by POLARIN’s Project Manager, Veronica Willmott. More information about POLARIN can be found on the Poster #42: “POLARIN: The Polar Research Infrastructure Network” and at the EU Polar Cluster booth at the venue until the end of this week.

POLARIN will open its first transnational access (TA) call for proposals for researchers to access polar research infrastructure by the end of September 2024.

Projects requesting access to Arctic research stations, ice and sediment core repositories and observatories (for implementation in 2025), and to Antarctic research stations and research vessels/icebreakers in the Arctic and Antarctic (for implementation in the duration of POLARIN), will be accepted.

Stay tuned to know more!

At the recent SCAR 2024 meeting held in August, the POLARIN project was presented, an EU-funded initiative that brings together an international network of polar research infrastructures. The project, which will run for five years (from March 2024 to February 2029), aims to address the scientific challenges of polar regions by providing integrated access to a wide array of high-level research infrastructures, including research stations in the Arctic and Antarctic, research vessels, icebreakers, observatories, and data repositories.

The workshop was an excellent opportunity for researchers interested in exploring the possibilities offered by POLARIN and understanding how the project will contribute to interdisciplinary research on complex processes in polar regions. The event underscored the importance of international collaboration and the sustainable use of available infrastructures for polar science in the coming years.

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THE 46th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM 46) and 26th Meeting of the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP 26) took place from 20 to 30 May 2024 in Kochi, India, hosted by the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), an autonomous research institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India.
The Parties to the Antarctic Treaty meet every year at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative meeting (ATCM) to exchange information, to consult together on matters of common interest pertaining to Antarctica, and to formulate, consider, and recommend measures to their Governments. The Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) also meets annually to discuss the status of the Antarctic environment in general and the implementation of the Environment Protocol specifically.
As the project POLARIN will provide access to research infrastructures in the Antarctic region, the project was presented to the audience by the Project Coordinator Nicole Biebow (AWI). An Information Paper was submitted by Germany on this respect and endorsed by multiple nations.

The Ukrainian research vessel Noosfera has completed her third Antarctic season. Late in the evening of May 8, 2024, she docked at the port of Cape Town (South Africa).
This was Noosphere’s longest Antarctic season with the largest scientific program. It began on November 17, 2023 along the route Cape Town – King George Island (Arctowski Polish Antarctic station) – Galindez Island (Ukrainian Antarctic Akademik Vernadsky station).
The icebreaker

Reconstruction of slips and renewal of water supply and grounding systems – important modernization works were carried out at Vermadsky station; they were started even before the full-scale war. They were performed by a technical team of five specialists – Anatolii Andreiev (team leader), Volodymyr Khrapach, Oleg Ganzha, Vadym Neshko, Yurii Shovkaliuk. This team was part of a seasonal expedition and worked.

WP2 has during May arranged four online meetings where the infrastructure operators have met to discuss and provide input on the logistic evaluation procedure for the POLARIN transnational access. In addition to getting to know each other, great input was received and the minutes and recordings from the meetings are currently being prepared and compiled.

POLARIN Kick-off meeting is on the way at AWI in Bremerhaven, where over 80 participants are paving the way for novel calls for access to polar research infrastructure in the Arctic and Antarctica.