The early career-led UK Polar Network (UKPN) responded to asks from their members for practical field skills and science planning training to support confidence in fieldwork with PolarSTEP: Polar Skills Training for Early Career Researchers and Professionals. While universities and research institutes provide good training to students and staff, it is often technical and discipline specific and assumes a basic level of outdoor skill. Additionally, as much flexibility as there is in higher education programmes such as MSc’s and PhD’s their independent research projects often have loose yet pre-defined objectives. Early career researchers and those outside of academia can end up in the exciting position of developing a research proposal for a grant or planning fieldwork, without having structured training on the science planning process.

Building on lessons learnt in 2023 through delivery of a similar course in Dartmoor National Park, the 2025 Yorkshire Dales course walked participants through the science planning process from development of research questions, to permits and risk assessments. This set the scene for discussions on fieldwork planning, and outdoor skills.

With a mission to make polar science more accessible, the course directly addresses two key barriers to fieldwork – it creates a welcoming space to talk about taboo subjects such as toileting and menstruation, and recognises that peers who haven’t grown up camping, hiking, and doing outdoor activities don’t receive this basic training before going to cold, remote field sites.

Participants praised the course’s structure and content saying:

“Incredibly well plann[ed] training course with many unexpected topics that encouraged a new thought process.”

“The emphasis on interpersonal relationships was a huge factor in the course’s success and meant we all got a lot more out of the other activities too.”

“It sometimes feels you should somehow know all of this, so it makes me nervous to ask questions that might be obvious. This explained everything from the ground up without being too basic or too intense. I now feel much more confident in what I need to keep myself warm, dry and safe.”

“There were absolutely no sessions that were not useful, I took some knowledge away from all of them.”

As a peer-to-peer initiative, this course offers an exciting chance to support leadership development, ensuring that early career researchers and professionals in the future continue to have access to this training. Following the Dartmoor course, three participants joined the UKPN committee in some capacity, and one co-delivered PolarSTEP, demonstrating how crucial these activities are to the sustainability of the organisation, as well as polar science. We’re excited to see what the PolarSTEP 2025 participants do next!

You can read more about the success of PolarSTEP 2025 in our engaging report here:

If you’re interested in sponsoring the course in 2026 or 2027, please reach out to us at training@polarnetwork.org.

If you’re an early career individual interested in future training opportunities, please sign up to our mailing list and follow us on social media!