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!
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
CINUK (Canada Inuit Nunangat United Kingdom Arctic Research Program) AGM and ArcticNet, Ottawa
I was very thankful to be awarded a travel grant under the "Next Generation UK-Canada Arctic Science Engagement Scheme" funded through the NERC Arctic Office. I attended with UKPN Committee members Louise, Jas and Dylan. For several years, CINUK has been devoted to advancing research in the Inuit Nunangat region with the National Inuit Strategy on Research (NISR) at its heart. It was fantastic to see the diversity in projects and their achievements of the past 3 years. Projects that stood out were Sikuttiaq (Changing ice conditions) , Nuna (Changing land conditions - which featured UKPN president Louise), NNSAR(Search and rescue) and BARIN (beavers and ecological research). These projects did a fantastic job implementing NISR collaborating with Inuit to reproduce cutting-edge research. Seeing collaboration with Inuit first hand really highlighted how research can have a positive impact on communities. It was great to get to know them further and discuss all things polar science and what this conference means for activities within UKPN. A highlight was having opportunities to network, experience Inuit culture and hear speeches from keynote speakers such as the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) President Natan Obed and Governor general of Canada, Mary Simon. Getting keynote speakers stood out as potential idea for UKPN in the future.
" Both conferences were a great way to start the winter season, providing plenty of food for thought as I begin my PhD."
UK Polar Network 2023 wrapped
The UK Polar Network (UKPN) have had a very busy 2023, so we felt it would be worth mentioning some of what we’ve been up to this year! Our outstanding committee members have been hard at work over the last 12 months delivering all of the work UKPN offers.
The start of 2023 saw UKPN organise and deliver ‘Polar Pint of Science’, an event which brought scientists out of the lab/field/office and into the pub to chat about all things polar with budding members of the general public. Closely followed the Cardiff Science Festival which the UKPN were present at, providing scientific outreach to children in the capital of Wales.
The middle of 2023 included the planning for upcoming events later in the year which would include: field courses, written evidence for an inquiry, conference and family events. August would soon come around, and the UKPN would become the focus of BBC News articles and stories which focussed on the Clean Planet Peninsula Dartmoor Training Course which was supported by the Clean Planet Foundation and UKPN. The training course would bring together early-career scientists to discuss and experience research projects and of course, the great British weather on Dartmoor!
By this point of the year, UKPN’s events were beginning to ramp-up with a new committee in place for September of 2023. At the same time, our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) team were running a session at the Arctic Science Conference hosted at the British Antarctic Survey while preparing for an event in Durham in October. Later in November, our EDI team would be leading Polar Pride celebrations, a day to recognise our LGBTQ+ colleagues and reinforcing the message that polar science is open to everyone, every day. This would be later followed with UKPN committee members being invited to the ‘All-Party Parliamentary Group for Polar Regions’ lunch which discussed the Polar Pride initiative and diversity in polar science.
The Autumn of 2023 also saw the publication of the Environmental Audit Committee’s inquiry into the UK and the Arctic Environment which UKPN had submitted written evidence towards. The evidence submitted was included in the final report, citing our evidence on multiple occasions which we hope will influence funding opportunities, particularly for early-career researchers in the future!
Our annual Antarctic Flags programme was bigger than ever in 2023, with over 1000 flags from 290 schools going down south with scientists to Antarctica. This scheme invites schools to deliver lessons about Antarctica and once completed, students design a flag of what Antarctica means to them and what they have learnt. These flags are then forwarded to UKPN and distributed to scientists headed to the poles for a field-season and are pictured and sent back to the schools and their students (as pictured below).
At the end of November, UKPN returned to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich to deliver polar outreach to families visiting the museum. The day saw UKPN volunteers engaging with museum visitors with our polar maps and climate change board game, as well as bringing along polar field gear, giving the visitors a taste of fieldwork and the kit involved!
All in all, 2023 has been a tremendously successful year for UKPN! Who knows what 2024 holds, but we have some exciting announcements to come next year which we look forward to sharing with you.
Everyone at UKPN wishes you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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!
Antarctica Day Quiz registration now live - 1 December 7pm!
Dear All,
We are happy to announce that the UKPN has an exciting Antarctica Day Quiz running this year!
Antarctica Day has been celebrated since 2010 to commemorate the signing of the Antarctic Treaty on 1st December 1959. So, grab a pint, a penguin, and some pals and join us on 1st Dec at 19:00 GMT on zoom.
You can register with a team of max 5 people (all participating virtually, one registration per team): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/antarctica-day-quiz-tickets-130384378185?fbclid=IwAR2WGGt898lezDEykuU-VzsIftRtfRX81rDOF1jdlgUHzSs9X--_HvuCw0k
Photo courtesy Stas Zakharov