Services
Transnational Access to Infrastructure
POLARIN partners operate world-class research infrastructure in the Arctic and Antarctic, which result from a long history of polar research and significant investments made by national polar programmes. For the first time ever, POLARIN provides Transnational Access to a set of complementary and multidisciplinary European and International research infrastructure covering both poles. POLARIN’s research infrastructure network include: - 27 Arctic stations. - 11 Antarctic stations. - 12 Research vessels including icebreakers. - 1 deep-sea observatory, 2 observational networks and 15 key observatories associated to research stations. - 4 Ice and sediment core repositories. Access to these infrastructures is provided through transnational access, either on-site or remotely, via dedicated public calls throughout the project lifetime. POLARIN’s transnational access programme offers multi-platform access to a wide range of research infrastructures, enabling multidisciplinary projects to integrate data, expertise, and observations across multiple environmental domains.
Virtual Access
In the context of POLARIN, Virtual Access (VA) refers to the provision of user-friendly, free of charge, and open online access to services provided by polar research infrastructures including scientific data, metadata, and data services. Currently, POLARIN offers Virtual Access to 7 data infrastructures, 2 observational networks, and 12 research stations.
VA is openly available to all users without a selection process and enables researchers, policymakers, and stakeholders by providing evidence-based information for sustainable management of polar environments, particularly in the context of climate change and human activity impacts.
POLARIN supports VA by connecting data, metadata, data services, and data products from multiple polar research infrastructures through the POLARIN metadata catalogue. This includes the technical and operational work required to host, curate, maintain, and deliver distributed VA resources via a common access point (the POLARIN metadata catalogue), and to ensure that these resources remain discoverable, interoperable, reliable, and usable throughout the project lifetime. VA funding may therefore be used to support efforts to integrate new or previously unpublished datasets with the POLARIN metadata catalogue and the operational costs of the VA data repositories to ensure effective and sustained delivery of these services to users throughout the project lifetime.
Datasets and services provided through VA are integrated into the POLARIN metadata catalogue and exposed through the POLARIN Data Hub, ensuring discoverability, accessibility, and reusability in line with FAIR principles, and enabling the monitoring of access in accordance with Horizon Europe requirements.