Recruiting the 2021/22 committee

It’s that time of year again! We’re looking to fill some positions on our 2021/22 committee. We welcome a diverse range of people and all you need is enthusiasm! PhD students, post-docs, masters students and non-academics are all happily accepted.

Being part of the UKPN is the perfect way to expand your polar network, hear of unique opportunities first, develop your skills, help other early career researchers, and – of course – it’s a load of fun. The UKPN is present at national and international events alongside local officials, governments, and leading scientists.

Each role will have handover notes from the previous volunteer, and the committee is on hand to support. Roles are flexible with the amount of time they require as they can be seasonal, but as a ball-park, plan for two hours a week and a 2-hour meeting every other month. If you want to do more, there will be other projects and tasks available!

Please apply via the form (bit.ly/UKPNcomm21) by 16th August 2021.


PolarECC

Polar Early Career Conference flyerAbstract submission and registration open! Find out more here.


Committee positions available!

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It's the time of year where we recruit new committee members for the 2020/21 term. The positions we have available are outlined below with short descriptions. We welcome a diverse range of people, and all you need is some enthusiasm! Traditionally the majority of the committee are PhD students, but Post-docs, Masters Students, and non-academics are always very welcome too.

Being a part of the UKPN committee is a great way to expand your Polar network, hear about unique opportunities first and develop your soft skills, and of course, it’s a lot of fun! We get a great bunch of people every year, and they represent the UKPN at national and international events alongside local officials, governments, and leading scientists. Each role will have a handover from the previous committee member and the new president and the committee will support each committee member in their role. Roles are flexible with the amount of time they need as they are seasonal, but as a ball-park, plan for two hours per week in addition to the bimonthly meeting. The time can fit into your own schedule, and the more time you have to spare, the more you can volunteer for additional tasks.

Please email president@polarnetwork.org by the 21st of August with a brief description of why you would like to take the role on. Any questions are welcomed too.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) officer

  • To monitor and increase EDI both within our organisation and within STEM as a field. Will work closely with education and outreach to run a mentorship scheme, fund prospective students to attend university open days, and host undergraduates within our member’s institution. Will work on linking with universities across the UK to create a diversity network.
  • The officer will be supported for the first six months by the Diversity in Polar Science Initiative, introduced to the relevant senior officials, and be supported by the UKPN EDI team.

Education & Outreach: festivals

  • Organise UKPN attendance at two UK festivals (e.g. Edinburgh festival, Bristol festival of nature), including applying for spot at festival, finding volunteers, planning activities and running stall at festival.
  • This is a joint role with one of our reps staying on from last year, giving a head start in terms of planning.

Education & Outreach: Antarctic Flags

  • A highly successful outreach activity where schools design flags for the Antarctic continent which are then sent south to researchers. This role will be to co-ordinate and deliver this project (registration of schools via google form, finding Antarcticans to take flags (electronically), and collating and sending back photos to schools).

Education and Outreach: Pint of Science

  • To organise a Pint of Science event - an informal series of interesting talks by researchers in a pub setting -  spanning three cities.
  • These events have been highly successful over the last few years, and tickets have not been difficult to sell.

Social media 

  • Manage our social media communications as well as the UKPN blog. We communicate through a large variety of channels including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Social media: website

  • UK Polar network WordPress posting, and updating website with events, news, etc.

Volunteers needed!

The UKPN committee 2019/20 are looking for enthusiastic volunteers to fill our last remaining position as a festival coordinator.

Don’t miss the chance to get involved!


Writing Successful Proposals: a guide for ECRs

Don't miss our upcoming workshop!

Writing successful proposals

The UK Polar Network will be holding a workshop at the Arctic Sciences conference in Loughborough in September. We are offering an optional social media for conferences session on the evening of the 10th, a morning workshop on proposal writing, and a free lunch. Don't forget to register before 8th August.

To register, click here 

For more information on the UK Arctic Science Conference, click here


Opportunity to attend Marine Research and Education Conference in Moscow

Applications are invited from early career researchers (from PhD level to 10 years post-PhD) with an interest to marine stations to participate in a side-event during the Marine Research and Education Conference in Moscow, November 21-22, themed “Interdisciplinary marine research in the Arctic and Northern Atlantic Oceans”. The event is in collaboration with the UK Polar Network,  the Marine Research Center of Lomonosov Moscow State University, the UK Science & Innovation Network and NERC Arctic Office.
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Workshops will be held at Moscow in the Institute of Oceanology with travel and accommodation support available. Please download the conference schedule and application form linked at the bottom of this post (to save the files you can right-click and print to PDF).

The application deadline is midnight (GMT) on 17th September2018 (i.e. 00:00 18/9/18 GMT). 

Please return completed application forms to to applications@polarnetwork.org for UK-based researchers or to info@maresedu.com for Russian-based researches with a title UK-Russian side-event.
Any additional enquiries can be addressed to the conference organising committee at info@maresedu.com

100 Days to Antarctica Day!

Today marks the 100-day countdown to Antarctica Day! We at UK Polar Network will be working with Our Spaces this year to lead the Antarctica Day festivities--you'll be hearing a lot from us over the next couple of months. As part of this initiative, we invite individuals, classrooms and schools to participate in the festivities by sending us their renditions of Antarctic flags. The flags will then hitch a ride all the way to Antarctica, and we will send proof of travel with a certificate and photos of their journey!

Antarctica flag activity in Cape Town South Africa
Antarctica Day Flag event with the International Polar Foundation, in Cape Town, South Africa

What's so important about Antarctica Day and our Flags event? After almost fifty-five years, the Antarctic Treaty continues to shine as a rare beacon of international cooperation. To celebrate this milestone of peace in our civilisation with hope and inspiration for future generations – Antarctica Day is recognised to be December 1st -the day when the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959. As an annual event, Antarctica Day encourages participation from around the world. Our aim is to continue expanding Antarctica Day through our Flags initiative as a globally-accessible platform to share, interpret and cherish the values associated with Antarctica for the benefit of present and future generations.

For researchers travelling to Antarctica

You can help!

Are you heading down to Antarctica or any of the surrounding Antarctic Islands this Winter (November - January)? If so, please let us know! All we ask is for you to help bring down some of these flags, which will be sent to you in pdf or jpg format (however many you are willing to help with!) and photograph them on Antarctica as proof of them having made the journey down south. However you do so is completely up to you--you can be as creative as you want. The photos in this post show various ways that past Antarctic teams have showcased these flags.

Rothera Station Antarctica Day
Staff at Rothera Research Station celebrate 55 years of the Antarctica Treaty with Antarctic flags

For teachers and classrooms:

We've uploaded many school resources, including class plans and PowerPoints on how you, as an educator, can introduce Antarctica and Antarctica Day into your classroom, and have your students create flags to be sent down to Antarctica. We would like to emphasise that submissions to us can only be up to 5 flags per school or classroom--if you would like to submit your flags to us, please contact Julie Berkman <jberkman@ourspaces.org.uk> where she will provide you a DropBox link on reply.

The idea is for your students to design flags for the Antarctic. You can either get all students to design flags, and then chose your 'top five' or you could design a couple of flags as a whole class/year group. Digital pictures of the flags are sent to us, and we then print off these picture and send them down to the Antarctic with our scientists and engineers in November and December. A picture of your flags will then be taken within the Antarctic, and the student/classroom will receive a certificate to say where their flag was displayed. There is also a chance that a competition will be run for the best flags to be hung up around the British Antarctic Survey and Scott Polar Museum.

We can provide a large number of resources and lesson ideas. We would also like to maintain a relationship with the school afterwards, either by a visit to the school from a scientist, or an online Q&A session for your students with a scientist. This is an international activity, and so far we have schools from over 20 countries taking part. The UKPN would love to have your school participate in this exciting event.

To help you implement this activity within your classroom, we've attached a sample class plan for Antarctica Flags that has been most popular over the last couple of years! If you would like this class plan in another language, please let us know by replying to this email.

Antarctic Day - Escuela Rural 110, Soriano, URUGUAY
A classroom at the Escuela Rural 110, in Soriano, Uruguay, displays their renditions of the Antarctica Flag

This year, our deadline for submission of Antarctica Day flags will be slightly earlier, on the 1st November (exactly 1 month before Antarctica Day!), because we'd like to get your flags to be photographed in Antarctica on the 1st December. 

Windless Bight_Gateway PCAS students w Antarctic Flags
Staff and students on the Gateway Antarctica expedition with Antarctica New Zealand display Antarctica flags on Christmas Day

Lastly, to keep updated and involved in the Antarctica Day festivities, please follow us on Facebook (UKPN and Antarctica Day) and Twitter, where we will be regularly posting your flag submissions and other relevant items counting down the days to December 1st.

Please get in touch with either me <tj.young@polarnetwork.org>, Jenny Turton <jenny.turton@polarnetwork.org> or Julie Berkman <jberkman@ourspaces.org.uk> if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing your Antarctic Flags!

 TJ Young and Jenny Turton


Polar outreach day in Leeds

On Monday 28th November 2011, UKPN member and University of Leeds PhD student Chris Williams educated and enthralled sixty children aged 7-8 about science and exploration in the Arctic region.

Chris treated the budding polar enthusiasts to a fascinating photo presentation, lively discussions, real-life displays and interactive exercises to show the wonder and challenge of living and working in the Arctic environment.

Feedback from the children and teachers was excellent and all participants went away with an appreciation of and fascination for the polar regions, and many future explorers were inspired!


Summary of UKPN at RGS Explore 2011!

In mid-November of 2011, Laura Hobbs and Thomas Perriment from the UKPN committee attended the Royal Geographical Society’s annual Expedition and Fieldwork Planning weekend – Explore. Set in the heart of London, the theme of the conference could not have had a less city feel to it; and with every lecture and workshop, it felt as though the doors to the world were opening a little more. After their own expedition-worthy journey from Plymouth to London, Laura and Tom set up their poster that would inform delegates and speakers about the UKPN, its aims and its benefits to early career scientists. Throughout the weekend, they were inundated with questions about the Polar Network, and people were amazed to find that this resource and wealth of information was available to them. They had a lot of interest in the workshops and outreachevents coming up this year, and I think it is safe to say that this interest will grow as word spreads throughout the expedition community. Laura said, "It was a pleasure to be part of such an exciting and inspiring event, and also great to meet many UKPN members, both new additions and those who have previously been involved."

So what can we takeaway from Explore for the UKPN?

Although predominantly explorers and adventurers, many delegates were interested in getting some scientific information to support their expeditions which may not have a research theme at their core. Thomas said, "The support available to expeditions and research trips in both physical and life sciences, as well as anthropology is vast, this is where the UK Polar Network can assist you and your team."

Would you like to assist with expeditions and inform the team about research in the area? The interest in outreach work was quite frankly overwhelming… Let’s run with this and really put the UKPN out there in terms of engaging the future generation in Polar research. The Explore weekend is a great way to go about designing your own Polar expedition or research trip. The RGS and the staff are brimming with information, and their breadth of knowledge is incomparable and seems never-ending. If you have any ideas that you would like to discuss, please contact the RGS or contact the UK Polar Network can get you in contact with the right people


Polar Sedimentary Processes and Archives Workshop

The UKPN and Loughborough University are pleased to announce the Polar Sedimentary Processes and Archives workshop as the latest in the 2010 series of UKPN career skills workshops.

Location: Loughborough University
Dates: 18th and 19th of November 2010.
Sedimentary archives are key indicators of past environmental change across a range of timescales.  Coupled with an understanding of contemporary sediment processes, they make it possible to reconstruct terrestrial, cryospheric, atmospheric, marine, and lacustrine conditions, which are vital for accurate modelling of future scenarios for climate change.

The workshop aims to explore the following themes:

• How is the polar sedimentary archive used to understand past environmental processes?

• How can past polar sedimentary processes be interpreted in terms of environmental and climatic change?

• What uncertainties are there in the sedimentary record (past and present), and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the differing sedimentary records available in polar regions?

•       How can we use polar sediments from different sources to obtain a regional perspective on past and present environmental change that would benefit climate modelling?

We intend to appeal to early career researchers (MSc, PhD and post-doctoral researchers) working in polar, sub polar or alpine regions with an emphasis on sediments. The intention is to cover a range of sub-disciplines within the earth sciences including, glacial and periglacial sedimentology, limnology and palaeolimnology, hydrology, aeolian, marine and atmospheric sciences. This is not an exhaustive list and we welcome all polar researchers.

Proposed sessions include

• Glacial and periglacial sediments
• Lacustrine sediments
• Aeolian and Atmospheric sediments
• Marine sediments
• Arctic hydrology
• Modelling future change in the Polar regions

Planned sessions also include advice about publishing and a panel session on field research skills by leading academics.

The workshop will provide an opportunity for peer to peer networking, skills training, encouraging collaborations and increasing the technical and scientific knowledge of participants. All delegates will be encouraged to do an oral presentation or produce a poster about their research, and will be encouraged to help in the organisation of the workshop, such as chairing sessions.

It is anticipated that a small fee (no more than £10) will be charged for all delegates attending the workshop. This is a postgraduate event and costs will be kept to a minimum. The UKPN has donated some funding towards the conference which will be used to support travel and accommodation expenses of delegates. We invite all delegates to claim some funding towards the conference costs.

We ask interested participants to pre-register by the 31st of August 2010 by using the online questionnaire at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SBXD9MW.  If you have any questions please email  lboroworkshop@polarnetwork.org.