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 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
UKPN Seminar Series: Navigating Collaborations with Arctic Communities
UKPN kicked off our 2025 seminar series with a fascinating talk by Dr Ilona Kater, 'Navigating Collaborations with Arctic Communities'. Ilona covered interesting case studies, challenges/complexities associated with collaborating with indigenous communities and shared practical advice. The talk was followed by a chance to ask questions and then some interesting discussion. It gave everyone a lot of food for thought!
The recording of this seminar is available on our YouTube channel. Watch out for more seminars in the series.
Read Ilona's paper on the subject:
Kater, I., 2022. Natural and Indigenous sciences: reflections on an attempt to collaborate. Regional Environmental Change 22 (4), p109. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-022-01967-3
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."