Reflection on 2021 from UKPN
A little later in the year than we initially planned, but we would still like to take a moment to record and share with you the highlights of all the UKPN activities in 2021. Granted, 2021 may have only been mildly better than 2020 in many respects, and we’ve still had to organise the majority of our events virtually, but we’ll present a few UK Polar Network related highlights here and let you decide for yourself. Stay tuned for our recent updates and future opportunities on our social media pages!
First of all, a new UKPN committee has been formed for the 2021/2022 academic year, and with 40 early career volunteers from across the UK, this is the largest committee in UKPN history! Because new committees can only be successful thanks to the work of past committees, we had our first President symposium in October 2021, in which we brought together committee representatives from more than 10 years of UKPN history (2008-2021) to exchange knowledge and ideas for future directions.
As always, the 2021 Antarctic flags project was very popular: 180 flags were submitted by schools from 9 different countries including Poland, Portugal, Hong Kong and Uganda! To date, 40 flags have been received back from teams who have taken them to Antarctica and more will follow as the Antarctic Summer season progresses. The flags taken down by the RRS Sir David Attenborough even included a fantastic letter from the crew members to the schools.
The Polar Pen Pals project allows students to send letters with questions to polar researchers on subjects that they are currently studying, such as meteorology, zoology and glaciology. So far, 30 schools have signed up, and 6 requests for Skype or in person conferences have been received.
The 2021 Polar Pride day was a huge success – and an absolute 2021 UKPN highlight! Social media posts about polar pride day reached an audience of 35.7 million people in 70 countries and 14 published news items mentioning Polar Pride reached about 15.7 million people.
The UKPN also organised three online Polar Pint of Science shows in collaboration with the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) and Pint of Science. The shows ran over three weeks in October in the run-up to COP26 and all three shows had well over 100 live viewers and a total of 2000 views on Youtube. The episodes (Exploration Untold, The Polar Connection: linking past to future, A roadmap for the future: empowering the globe to save the poles) are still available on Youtube, so do have a look!
In collaboration with the National Maritime Museum (NMM) we organised workshops and activities during the Ice Worlds festival in October 2021. Thanks to the excellent work of our 8 ECR volunteers, the workshops such as “make your own polar animal”, “build a glacier”, “polar foodwebs” and “where did the Titanic sink?” received visitors who even returned to the NMM within the 4-day period to attend the workshops for a second time! Sorry you missed it? We will be collaborating with the NMM on other outreach events in the future!
Three webinars were hosted by the Arctic Sciences Priorities (ASPP) UK-Russia early-career researchers’ collaborations for future sustainability in 2021 and 4 more webinars will follow in 2022. Each webinar is live, and involves a discussion (in both English and Russian) and/or presentations on the various challenges faced by UK-Russia scientific collaborations and how to tackle them. You can re-view past webinars on Youtube: Collaborations matter: a webinar on UK-Russia collaborations in Arctic Science, Starting points: funding and networks, You-me understand: how to overcome cultural and language barriers. Or sign up for future webinars through our mailing list and the UK-Russia collaboration website.
The UKPN has also co-organised and attended a number of conferences in 2021 including:
- the Polar Early Career Conference in May 2021, which was led entirely by ECRs, involved 400 attendees and over 100 presentations and included sessions on various Polar science disciplines, as well as employability workshops, and EDI session, and panels on local knowledge exchange and the impacts of COVID and Brexit on research (which resulted in a Nature article – see also our blogpost on this).
- The ATOM Science Festival in Oxford, with digital activities, quizzes and QR codes which linked to videos on polar research to accompany a treasure hunt around Oxford.
- In addition to this, talks which were given, posters presented and workshops co-organised at the Virtual Early Career Ocean Professionals Day 2021, the 2021 Arctic Circle Assembly and the Svalbard Science Forum.
The UKPN organised an online visual design course for early career scientists. During the one-day course which was given by Infohackit, 24 ECRs learned essential design skills for making science infographics. Hopefully in 2022 we will be able to organise more training courses for our members!
Some other important 2021 highlights included the renovation of our website – doesn’t it look amazing now? - increased collaboration with the newly formed APECS Iceland committee, and support from our EDI officers to various Polar Science networks and activities.
With that, we would like to give a huge applause to our 2020-2021 committee members and the numerous early career scientist volunteers from the UKPN network who have made all of this possible. And we look forward to an equally exciting 2022: note down the Cardiff Science Festival (19 & 20 February) and the Cheltenham Science Festival (June 10th) in your agenda’s, and watch this space (or our newsletter and social media accounts) for more to come!
UKPN Survey Results - Summer 2021
The latest iteration of our survey of the demographics of the UK Polar Network was undertaken in June 2021. 146 people responded, an increase of 27% from the winter survey. We present a brief summary of these results below. We continue to regularly collect this data in order to understand our membership base and monitor how the demographic of the UKPN changes over time.
A variety of careers and career stages are represented within the UKPN, including undergraduate students, field technicians, teachers and research scientists; though approximately half the members are PhD students. This is shown in Figure 2, where the “other” category includes people in industry at a variety of career stages, as well as people in technical, governmental and field support roles. The age range of members spans from 18 (though younger members are welcome) to people in their 60’s. 12% of UKPN Members surveyed have parental responsibilities. Research highlights the perceived incompatibility between parenthood and an academic career (1,2,3) often as a contributing factor to the “leaky pipeline”(4), with appropriate leave and childcare for crucial for recruitment and retention of potential parents, particularly mothers(5).
Figure 3 shows the proportion of survey respondents identifying as LGBQ+ has risen since our last survey. Increasing queer representation in STEM, through initatives such as LBGT STEMinars, Polar Horizons and Polar Pride day (on the 18th of November), though there are still challenges for LGBT inclusion in the Polar Sciences, especially surrounding field research in isolated and sometimes hostile locations (6, 7).
6% of Survey respondents are from a Black or Minority Ethnic group (BAME), the same as from our previous survey but the ethnicities represented differs from last time (Figure 4). This is less than half the proportion of BAME individuals in the UK STEM community (8). Over half of BAME individuals surveyed in a recent student of the UK Polar Science community experienced racism in the workplace (9), with barriers surrounding fieldwork also contributing towards negative experiences of people of colour in our field (10). For resources, or to find out more, check out polarimpactnetwork.org.
Members of UKPN speak at least 35 different languages in addition to English (all except English are shown in the word cloud in Figure 5, with the size of the text proportional to the number of speakers).
12% of survey respondents describe themselves as having a disability, with mental health conditions being the most common, in comparison to 19% of the working aged UK population (11). Inaccessible work spaces and workplace cultures (12,13), as well as the emphasis on physically demanding fieldwork (14,15), present challenges to equality for disabled people within our field and thus perceptions of geoscience as unsuitable for people with disabilities are common (16).
To summarise, the polar science community represented by the UKPN is diverse. We are continuing to work towards making the polar sciences an inclusive and accessible environment where people of all backgrounds can thrive. In order to do this, we have recently partnered with EDiG (equity and diversity in geosciences) and have joined the Diversity in Polar Science initiative.
References
(1) Crabb & Ekburg, 2014 (https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2014.911251)
(2) Gonçalves, 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.37573)
(3) Burrough, 2021. (https://www.sallieburrough.com/blog/navigating-the-hood-where-do-all-the-science-mothers-go-in-academia)
(4) Dubois-Shaik & Fusulier, 2017 (https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904117701143)
(5) Morgan et al., 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd1996)
(6) Olcott & Downen, 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO148200)
(7) Jackson, 2021 (https://geoscientist.online/sections/viewpoint/some-barriers-are-invisible/)
(8) Equality in higher education: students statistical report 2016 (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2016)
(9) Diversity in UK Polar Science: Race Impact Survey Report (https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/diversity-in-polar-science-race-impact-survey-report)
(10) Viglione, 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02328-y)
(11) Family Resources Survey 2019-20, 2020 (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2019-to-2020/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2019-to-2020)
(12) Lawrence, 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00775-4)
(13) Horton & Tucker, 2013 (https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12009)
(14) Hall et al, 2004 (https://doi.org/10.1080/0309826042000242495)
(15) Tucker & Horton, 2014 (https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12437)
(16) Atchinson & Libarkin, 2016 (https://doi.org/10.1130/GES01264.1)
UKPN Survey Results - Winter 2020
During November 2020 we released a survey to try to understand the demography of the UK Polar Network. 106 people responded, and herein we present a brief summary of these results.
Understanding the demography of the UKPN enables us to support members of the UKPN in their scientific endeavours. Collaborations between differing backgrounds and perspectives encourage innovation and lead to better science,. A lack of representation or appropriate support for researchers from minority groups leads to individuals dropping out of the field,,. Conducting this survey has enabled us to work out where to focus our efforts and support of our whole community.
Figure 1: Distribution of Members – A) by age, B) by occupation
Our membership base spans from undergraduate students to senior academics, from field guides to teachers, researchers and retired scientists (Figure 1b). We span an age range from 18 to over 65 (Figure 1a). Approximately half of survey respondents are PhD students in the polar sciences. The UKPN membership base speaks at least 24 different languages on top of English, as shown in the word cloud below.
Figure 2: Languages spoken by UKPN members other than English
The majority of survey respondents are female (Figure 3), and this is likely the case for early career scientists in the UK Polar research community when considering the very female make-up of our committee. Well-known phenomena such as the leaky pipeline, would suggest that these gender ratios do not transfer to the higher levels of the polar science hierarchy or career ladder, but the data we collected did not include enough people at senior levels to confirm or deny this.
Figure 3: Gender composition of the UKPN
22% of survey respondents identify as LGBQ+ (Figure 4), though less than 1% describe themselves as transgender. This is a larger proportion than UK academic STEM community, and governmental estimates of the UK population at large. Queer representation in science is limited but improving, and although 75% of LGBT physical scientists report feeling broadly comfortable in their workplace, there is still more that needs to be done to make Polar Sciences a place where LGBT individuals can thrive, especially given the particular challenges they face from field research in isolated and sometimes hostile locations.
Figure 4: LGB self-identification within the UKPN
Only 6% of the UK Polar science community (as represented by respondents to our survey, Figure 5) come from Black and Minority Ethnic Backgrounds, compared to 16% of the UK STEM community, and between 14 to 18% of the UK population as a whole. Less than 1% of Professors and only around 2% of academics at UK universities are Black,.
Figure 5: Ethnicities within the UKPN
As per the definition of a disability as a “a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities”, 15% of survey respondents identify as having a disability. Mental health conditions were the most widely reported disability.
Thank you very much to everyone who completed this survey and aided us in better understanding the demography of the UKPN’s members. As a result of this survey we are working on several projects to support UK Polar researchers, to help foster further diversity and inclusivity within our field. Further information of our upcoming schemes and events will follow in the new year, so watch this space
[1] Nature, 2014. (https://www.nature.com/news/diversity-challenge-1.15930)
[2] Seag et al, 2020. ( https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247419000585)
[3] Ulricksen et al, 2011. (https://doi.org/10.1080/03057267.2010.504549)
[4] Grogan, 2019. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0747-4)
[5] Dutt, 2020. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0519-z)
[6] Goulden et al., 2011 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211416925)
[7] Equality in higher education: students statistical report 2019 (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2019)
[8]Equality in higher education: staff statistical report 2019 (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2019)
[9] Office for National Statistics, 2017. (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017)
[10] Exploring the Workplace for LGBT Physical Scientists: A report by the Institute of Physics, Royal Astronomical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019. (https://www.rsc.org/new-perspectives/talent/lgbt-report/)
[11] Olcott & Downen, 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO148200)
[12 Equality in higher education: students statistical report 2016 (https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/equality-higher-education-statistical-report-2016)
[13] UK Census, 2011
[14] The Guardian, 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/27/fewer-than-1-of-uk-university-professors-are-black-figures-show)
[15] Higher Education Staff Statistics 2018/19 (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/working-in-he)
[16] Equality Act, 2010. (https://www.gov.uk/definition-of-disability-under-equality-act-2010)
