International collaboration at SCAR 2026 to support ECRs in polar science outreach
Last week over 1500 polar scientists and educators assembled in Oslo, Norway, for the 2026 Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research’s (SCAR) 12th Open Science Conference. Among them were early-career researchers from the UK Polar Network and other national committees of the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), who came not only to share the latest science with their fellow researchers, but also to discuss how ECRs can be enabled to bring polar science to a wider audience.
As many have repeated, what happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay there – the frozen continent and its surrounding ocean are keystones of the global climate system, impacting people’s lives around the world. But these invisible connections don’t automatically resonate with publics far from the poles, so how we communicate about them really matters. Early-career researchers are ideally placed to make these ideas accessible, especially to younger generations. But do they have the confidence, the training, and the support needed to bring polar science to life in the places where they live and work?
An international collaboration including UKPN, APECS South Africa, APECS Mexico, APECS France, and APECS Uruguay, are seeking to answer these questions by engaging with ECRs, educators, and general publics around the world. Their global surveys are still open for responses, but preliminary results were presented in a dedicated session at the SCAR conference, titled “Science Communication: Meeting Polar Outreach Needs as Early-Career Researchers”. The results revealed a highly motivated global ECR community who are actively creating opportunities for science outreach, relying primarily on their own initiative and (sometimes limited) experience.
These findings were supported by breakout group discussions where ECRs from different nations and backgrounds contributed their expertise in written, audio, and video forms of communication, with target audiences ranging from children and teenagers to young adults and parents. The benefits of collaboration and ongoing engagement were also emphasised for building sustainability and trust, particularly in social-media focused outreach initiatives.
The session concluded with a panel discussion featuring polar science communication experts from South Africa, Mexico, and India, who from their different experiences jointly highlighted the value of visual and tangible media for telling stories that audiences will relate to and remember. They also shared timely comments for ECRs struggling to balance outreach with other commitments, or facing institutional barriers to implementing it as a priority, and further emphasised the value of collaboration between ECRs, educators, and more senior academics.
A big thank you to everyone who was involved in putting this session together! Please continue to support this ongoing project by filling out the surveys for ECRs and educators & general public, and watch out for more communication about it in future!
Edmund Lea
UK Polar Network Festivals Team
UKPN Education and Outreach team at BugFest!
Written by Lena Lancastle, Education and Outreach Officer
In May, UKPN Education and Outreach team hosted a stall at the outreach event Bug
Fest, which is jointly organised and hosted by the Sheffield Botanical Gardens and
PhD students at the University of Sheffield. The event aims to showcase interesting
bugs and insects as well as the research going into them at the University.
The stall UKPN hosted, ‘Polar bugs!’, displayed the insect and invertebrate life
present in the Polar regions. This included the Antarctic midge (the only insect in
Antarctica!), the Arctic bumblebee and, as many people were discovering for the first
time – all of the mosquitoes that are present in the Arctic.
It was a great event filled with kids eager to learn, some of them hearing about the
Polar regions for the first time. Adults and children both were surprised to hear that
the Arctic in particular hosts a large number of insects, and they had fun trying to
guess the Polar insects apart from their warmer climate relatives (hint: they’re
normally fluffier or darker in colour).
In it’s third year now, Bug Fest has seen attendance numbers increase year on year,
with over 1200 people attending the last event in May. This showcases the
importance of local outreach events for engaging members of the public and that the
interest for them is consistently on the rise. Being able to link with an event that
many people wouldn’t normally associate with Polar topics is also a great way to
showcase the diversity of the Polar regions and bring Polar to people who wouldn’t
necessarily find it otherwise! We would like to thank the organisers of Bug Fest for
including UKPN in their great event.
PolarSTEP: Early career leadership fills polar research skills training gap
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!
National Maritime Museum Polar Day 2025
On Saturday 29 th November this year, a team of nine UK Polar Network volunteers travelled
to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, for its annual Polar Day! After a
hiatus in 2024 while repairs were made to the museum roof, it was exciting to continue the
ongoing collaboration between UKPN and the NMM with another day of fun and engaging
polar science activities, talks, and displays for curious visitors of all ages.
UKPN activities and talks were hosted on the museum’s “Great Map” open floor space,
recently redesigned using the thought-provoking Spilhaus Projection, which depicts the
world’s oceans as a single interconnected system. This view of the world centres the
continent of Antarctica, highlighting the global importance of the poles, and providing a
fitting backdrop for sharing our enthusiasm for polar science!
Young visitors engaged with our 3D polar map displays, tried on real polar gear from the
British Antarctic Survey, and admired Lego displays of polar exploration ships brought by
collaborators from Polar Educators International. A crowd gathered to listen to a fascinating
talk on the challenges facing the polar regions in our changing world by Prof. Ilan Kelman of
UCL, then the crew of the Novara One Planet expedition shared what they learned from
sailing the Northwest Passage and visiting Arctic communities on the frontlines of this
change. Finally, our volunteers from the Scott Polar Research Institute shared with us their
research into community-based monitoring of urban heat islands in the Arctic, alongside a
popular experimental activity using infrared thermometers to compare the temperatures of
different surfaces.
Overall, we had a great time communicating about the polar regions and sharing the science
we’re so passionate about! I was very struck by how much all the volunteers enjoyed the
day, even those who were very nervous about speaking in public to begin with. As a festivals
team, we really want to expand our activities to offer these kinds of opportunities to as
many early-career researchers as possible – if you’d like to be involved, know of an event
you’d like to see us at, or just want to get in touch, we’d love to hear from you at
festivals@polarnetwork.org.
Edmund Lea
UK Polar Network Festivals Team
UKPN Takeaways from the UK Arctic Science Conference (Sept 2025)
Written by Isabelle Sangha, Millie Harding and Leeza Pickering
In September, various UKPN committee members attended the UK Arctic Science Conference at Northumbria University, Newcastle Upon Tyne. It was a fantastic few days of science, networking and wider discussions about the future of UK Arctic Science.
Here are some highlights and reflections from Izzy, Millie, and Leeza about their experiences at the conference.
Polar Beers takeaways - Izzy
After the first day of the conference we met at the Hotspur pub for a Polar Beers event. In the packed and cozy pub, Dr. Amy Macfarlane gave a captivating talk about art as a way to communicate science with sounds of ice melting, clothing inspired by prints from ice, and moving poems about polar regions. Dr. Rachel Carr then brought everyone to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica to tell stories of what it’s like doing remote field work, and how to talk like a penguin.
We finished off the evening with a competitive polar themed pub quiz and the winning team left sporting the Polar Beers beanies. Overall it was a great success and fun way to kick off the UK Arctic Science Conference!
International Polar Year - Millie
On the first morning of the conference the UKPN held a session for Early Career Researchers (ECRs) which focused on the 5th International Polar Year 2032-2033 (IPY-5). It was great to share with ECRs the current status of the IPY-5 as well as sharing how this is likely to shape future research. We specifically focussed on IPY-5 as there was a general sentiment that information about IPY-5 was not reaching UK-based ECR’s. We felt it was important to make everyone aware of this so that ECR’s could take full advantage of the opportunities that may arise out of IPY-5. We also highlighted current projects that were already known to UKPN that are linked to IPY-5 more generally or were running separately but were likely to feed into IPY-5. After the initial presentation, we moved into a panel discussion which enabled ECR’s to ask questions about previous International Polar Years and understand more about the IPY-5 to Professor Kate Hendry, Henry Burgess (Head of the NERC Arctic Office), and Pilvi Saarikoski (Impact facilitator at the British Antarctic Survey).
Education and outreach takeaways - Leeza
Presenting alongside Millie in the ECR session was amazing! It gave me the chance to tell ECRs about all the things that the UKPN Education and Outreach team have been up to in the past year. Furthermore, it gave us a great platform to share our current project with ECRs - the UKPN Roadshow! This is a planned UK wide tour inspiring the next generation to consider careers in polar science. We had a lot of interested ECRs, who are eager to get involved. Thank you to all who have signed up already! If you are reading this and are interested in helping out, please sign up here (https://forms.gle/UDEn3gbmLQeQFe2w5)!
Moving away from the presentation, it was great to meet so many people interested in the Arctic. I had some amazing conversations with people interested in education and outreach and some very interesting discussions about Arctic research! It was a blast. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the next UK Arctic Science Conference!
UKPN at Arctic Circle Assembly 2025
As someone who’s conference experience has previously only been UK based science conferences, going to the Arctic Circle Assembly is a very different experience. The Arctic Circle Assembly is a yearly conference held in Reykjavik that brings together an international community of people interested in the Arctic – 70 countries were represented this year by the 2000 total attendees. The Arctic Circle Assembly is a unique experience, so the opportunity to attend is highly recommended (and the location isn’t too bad either!).
The thing that makes Arctic Circle a very different conference is the geopolitics of it. A large proportion of people attending the Arctic Circle Assembly are governmental officials, all there to represent their countries interests. Additionally, institutions such as the Arctic Council and NATO are represented. This year we even had Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado of Japan giving a speech in the opening plenary! Working as a scientist in the Arctic geopolitics impacts your research even if you don’t feel like it does day to day. I think it’s important to have an awareness of how geopolitics is shaping the Arctic, attending Arctic Circle has really widened my understanding of the differing views and opinions of politics in the Arctic.
Being such a large conference, the conference has multiple sessions running at any one time, so planning was essential (made easy by the very handy app they created!). Sessions cover a broad range of topics, from the health impacts of wildfires on Arctic communities to talks with Neil Armstrongs family about a new film they’re a part of showcasing their fathers previously secret trip with Edmund Hillary to the Arctic in 1985! Alongside talks there are also invitation only roundtables to discuss business issues or topics like science diplomacy. Whilst there are no traditional ‘science’ talks or science poster sessions there is still a lot to get out of the conference as a scientist, especially as we’re coming up to International Polar Year 2032-2033 which had a lot of attention at the conference. Additionally, Indigenous communities had a large representation and presence in multiple talks. This representation is essential as none of these discussion can happen without Indigenous representation; to hear from members of Indigenous communities first hand experiences was incredibly beneficial to me as a researcher, but also to the wider Arctic community.
Additionally, the opportunity for networking is the best part of going. Talks are interesting but the connections you can build are what you really take away from a conference like this. Because everyone’s backgrounds are so varied, it really helps to promote cross disciplinary and international collaborations. It helps to connect with one or two people you know are going beforehand as it can be quite overwhelming walking into the massive Harpa Concert Hall, but even if you know no one there are plenty of opportunities to meet people at mixers.
I was lucky in securing funding from the NERC Arctic Office to support my attendance, as they were looking to send early and middle career researchers from the UK, so it is worth looking out for similar funding schemes to support your attendance in the future. Being supported by the NERC Arctic Office here in the UK to attend also meant I got to attend some special events. All British attendees to the conference were invited to a drinks reception the evening before it started at the British Ambassador to Iceland’s residence. Hosted by Dr Bryony Mathew, the current ambassador, it gave all British attendees an opportunity to mix and get to know one another. Later on in the conference schedule, attendees funded by the NERC Arctic Office were also invited to a dinner with Dame Angela McLean, the Chief Scientific Ad
visor to the UK government. This gave us a great networking opportunity and the chance to discuss our perspectives of UK Arctic science as well as hearing from Angela about gaining experience in the civil service as scientists (we also had a 7-course tasting menu that included raw scallops and beef tartare which is an experience I never thought I’d have!).
The conference closing night was also very different from anything I’ve experienced. The last plenary session included three musical performances from Nefur, a singer incorporating glacier sounds, Keli Armstrong & Friends singing about a flight Neil Armstrong took his son on and iDJA a Sámi DJ performing Sámi electronic music. After this, whilst at the closing drinks we also got treated to a spectacular northern lights show! Most of my time in Reykjavik the weather had been quite cloudy, but on the last night conditions turned out to be perfect. I’d never seen the northern lights before, so this was one of my highlights as well!
Overall attending the Arctic Circle Assembly was a great experience, if very tiring. I would recommend attending to any Early Career Researcher as it’s a completely unique experience, but particularly if you are interested in the political side of the Arctic or have career ambitions with government in mind. Use the time to build connections and soak up knowledge from everyone around you. You’ll be exhausted afterwards, but you’ll have a better, well-rounded perspective about the current issues facing the Arctic and its People’s.
Written by Lena Lencastle, PhD student Sheffield University, UKPN Education and Outreach Officer
ECRs at Antarctica InSync Science Planning Meeting
Last week, the Antarctica InSync Science Planning Meeting was hosted at the ESA-ESRIN (European Space Agency) in Frascati, Rome.
Antarctica InSync is an exciting, ambitious new global programme which seeks to 'synchronise research across Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, connecting ice, ocean, climate, and life to protect this vital region'. This will be done through synchronised, multi-platform observations between 2027-2030. (Read more about Antarctica InSync here). The science planning meeting had over 100 attendees collaborating to align scientific priorities around the 7 scientific Themes. Each theme did this through development of white papers which will be open for the community to comment on shortly, and then published sometimes in the new year.
UK Polar Network were lucky enough to have representation at the meeting. We were invited since we represent early career researchers (ECRs) on the UK InSync national committee. (Find out about other ways that UKPN represents ECRs here.) This was a fantastic opportunity to ensure that ECR perspectives were being heard during this planning phase, and to engage with the coordination team, attendees and key stakeholders.
Overall, it felt like the meeting was very inclusive to ECRs. There were several ECRs in attendance from various nations (although it is worth noting that they were mostly from Western countries). Their voices were actively included in discussions during Theme white paper developments. Impressively 2 ECRs had proposed and lead a scientific working group. At both the first and last plenary sessions we were pleased that senior scientists initiated discussions about ECR involvement. Discussions included possibilities of fieldwork training, hackathons and berth sharing.
We are so excited about some of the opportunities InSync presents for ECRs and will work hard to advocate for them to come to fruition. It's so important that as a community we try and make the most of the opportunities Antarctica InSync presents. Here are some ways to get involved in Antarctica InSync as an ECR:
- Sign up to the Antarctica InSync mailing list and the mailing list for the scientific themes you are most
Lucy Stephenson, UKPN Vice-President, attending the Antarctica In Sync Science Planning meeting held at the European Space Agency. interested in
- Watch this space for an Antarctica InSync ECR mailing list coming soon
- Join the working groups that align with your interests - these will be advertised soon
- Set up a working group around your scientific area of expertise!
- Contribute in the new year when theme white papers are opened up for feedback/input from the wider community
- Engage with your national committee. Look up who your ECR/APECS representative is on your national committee. If there isn't one should there be?
- Talk to your supervisors/collaborators about ways to get involved scientifically in Antarctica InSync
- Attend the InSync ECR workshop at SCAR Open Science Conference 2026 organised by APECS Germany
Written by Lucy Stephenson, UKPN Vice-President
Record numbers of UK schools involved in the UKPN Antarctic Flags Project 2024/25!
This year (2024-25) has been another record breaking year for our Antarctic Flags programme. Over 1200 individual flags were sent down with Antarctic scientists from 312 schools! Children got to see their creative designs at a variety of bases and on the icebreaker ship, the RRS Sir David Attenborough. This was also the longest Antarctic season for UK scientists with flags joining Antarctic scientists into the beginning of the Antarctic winter.
UKPN's flagship Antarctic Flags scheme gives schools the opportunity to supplement lessons about Antarctica with the chance to send a flag design to be photographed in Antarctica. Schools determine their flag selection process which may include a student competition or collaboration. UKPN facilitates the programme, including liaising with scientists and staff heading to Antarctica each year. Other national committees of APECS have been inspired by the model to launch similar initiatives within their countries.
If you'd like to get involved in the next season see more information here and get in touch via antarctica-day@polarnetwork.org.
