APECS International Mentorship Award

APECS seeks to recognize and honor the efforts of its mentors within the international polar scientific community. The APECS Mentorship Award is designed to recognize the time and energy that mentors devote to Early Career Researchers (ECRs) each year, and their efforts to build a community of support. APECS will award a mentor who works with the ECR polar scientific community (including Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine areas).

APECS encourages ECRs around the world to nominate mentors who deserve this recognition. We ask APECS members, APECS National Committees and Project Groups to nominate a person who has been an outstanding mentor to them or their (project) group or committee throughout their career. In 2024 a single award will be handed out.

• Who can nominate?

  To be considered, a candidate must be nominated by one or more current/former student(s), peer(s) and/or colleague(s), APECS member, committee (e.g. National Committee) or project group. Self-nominations will not be accepted. Members of the award committee are not eligible to nominate candidates.

• Who can be nominated?

  To be eligible for this award, the candidate must have contributed significantly over a period of several years to the mentoring and fostering of ECRs involved in research in the Polar regions or the wider Cryosphere. This award may be awarded to mentors from a variety of sectors, including academia, industry, the public sector, etc. Eligibility is not limited to those that are directly connected with APECS.

• Nomination
  

  Nominations must be provided in English. It must be submitted via the online nomination form by 31 May 2024 at 23:59 GMT and must include a nomination letter and at least two support letters (each 2 page maximum). Additionally, a CV of the nominee can be added.

  • CV of the nominee (requested but not required)
  • Nomination letter highlighting the nominee’s mentoring of ECRs addressing categories such as:

  1. 1. The time commitment and availability of the mentor. Assess the mentor's time commitment to mentoring (research discussion, motivation, career guidance, discussions, etc.) and their availability to mentees.
     2. What were the additional opportunities that the mentor provided? Please list examples of particular mentoring activities/efforts, such as, fieldwork, conferences, meetings, leadership opportunities, community interactions. Also, provide information on the duration of their collaboration and the particular benefits for yourself and other researchers starting your career.
     3. What was original about the support of the mentor? Please describe as much detail as possible, why you consider the mentor's commitment and approach to mentoring to be original. If possible, try to share specific examples of actions taken by the mentor.
     4. Assess the guidance and professional support offered by the mentor. Please describe in detail how the mentor's support was important to ECRs professional development. Preferably, use examples of particular development/career possibilities presented to you by the mentor.
     5. How does the mentor encourage ECRs to network? Using examples, explain how the mentor helped ECRs to become more involved in the polar and alpine research community or other communities. If possible, list the networking possibilities that the mentor has provided and describe how the mentor has helped strengthen the connections between ECRs in polar and alpine research.
     6. Describe the variety of mentees that the mentor has supported. Please describe the community surrounding the mentor, focusing on the inclusion of the community to accept new members, as well as the career path and stage of other mentees (i.e. college students, graduates, postdocs, engineers, technicians of laboratory and others).
     7. Describe the mentors' involvement in APECS. Please list specific examples of the mentor's involvement in the APECS community, either as a member of APECS or as a mentor to other members and national committees. 
     8. Include any additional information that you consider important to share. Please provide information about the mentor's activities that you consider important to the overall assessment that do not fall under any of the above categories (including their participation in mentor panels, workshops, webinars, etc.).

             (Please note: it is not required that the nomination letter address every question on this list, but the more information given the easier it will be to access the nominees potential for an award.)

  • Minimum of two support letters from another APECS member or colleague (e.g. students/faculty/colleagues who have also benefited from the support of the nominee).