APECS News

APECS, the Polar Science Early Career Community Office (PSECCO) and the High North Dialogue Academy will host an early career and youth networking & social event on 29 May, before the conference ice breaker starts at 20:00. Our aim is to provide a fun and informal way for people to meet each other and share ideas and interests before the rest of the conference program starts. 

We, the APECS Executive Committee (ExCom), held our annual in-person meeting on 21 and 22 March as part of the Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) and Arctic Observing Summit (AOS) in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

We met for two full days to discuss important topics related to the present and future directions of APECS. Topics included general communication within the organization, setting directions for the next APECS strategic plan and a Polar Early Career World Summit to be held alongside the upcoming ICARP IV and ASSW 2025 conference in Boulder, Colorado, USA. The meeting gave us the opportunity to discuss topics on an extended basis which is not possible during our digital bi-weekly two hour meetings. This was also the first time many of us met in person, so it was a great opportunity to get to know one another.

In December 2023, the APECS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Project Group, in collaboration with the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) EDI Action Group and Thrive Lifeline, embarked on a journey to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) mindset and decision-making capability in our organizations leadership bodies. The DEI workshops focused on eroding intrinsic biases, identifying microaggressions, and how to intervene as a bystanding observer effectively and safely. These workshops were organized and held online. 

APPLY for the APECS Executive Committee to help shape our organization and influence the future of polar research!

The elections for the 2024-2025 APECS Executive Committee will be held during May and June 2024 for the term from 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025.

Application deadline: 24 May 2024 at 23:59 GMT

In this online seminar, Arctic PASSION is introducing its pan-Arctic requirements-driven Permafrost Service. The Permafrost Service is based on remote sensing analyses, and detection and mapping of permafrost disturbances at high spatial resolution across large regions. The data helps to quantify landscape change, hydrological dynamics and permafrost vulnerability. In order to make the scientific findings easily accessible, we designed a tailored web-based portal specifically targeting non-scientific user communities, stakeholders and rightsholders. With the Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX), we provide interactive maps for recent information on land surface changes, hot spots of disturbances and potential areas of active permafrost thaw and erosion.

Each year 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), 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).

Are you passionate about the Arctic and its unique challenges and opportunities? Do you want to engage in meaningful discussions with fellow youth from across Europe and the Arctic? If so, we invite you to apply for the Arctic Youth Dialogue held in Brussels on May 11-15, 2024!

Several APECS members played a pivotal role at the recent Polar Symposium 2024 in Monaco, held 22-23 February. The APECS rapporteurs were José Queirós as APECS President, Hugo Guímaro and Lina Madaj as APECS Vice-Presidents, Gwenaëlle Gremion as ExOfficio for the Executive Committee and Alice Guzzi as National Committee Coordinator. Sarah Strand was also part of the APECS delegation as Executive Director. The rapporteurs’ responsibility was to summarise key points from the discussions during workshops and to ensure that the voices of early career scientists (ECSs) were heard.

Fig. 1 - APECS members with SCAR and IASC fellows at the Polar Symposium 2024 in Monaco (from left to the right: Alice Guzzi, Beatriz Recinos, Lina Madaj, Sarah Strand, Gwenaëlle Gremion, Hugo Guímaro, Archana Dayal, José Queirós). © Philippe Fitte / FPA2

Join APECS Canada and Arctic Science for a webinar on the reviewing process as an early career researcher (ECR). Our guest speaker is Dr. Lisa Loseto, editor in chief at Arctic Science, who will give an overview of the review process and tips for reviewing. This will be an interactive webinar with breakout rooms, for a chance to participate in hands-on exercises and receive real time feedback from journal experts at Arctic Science. 

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) is a consortium of international institutions with research infrastructure in and around Svalbard. SIOS is building an integrated observing system for long-term measurements addressing Earth System questions.

SIOS publishes an annual State of Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) report. The first issue was released in January 2019. The report summarises the state of current knowledge of key Earth System Science parameters and analyses how these parameters influence one another. The SESS report outlines the work that has been done in the previous year within the SIOS cooperation to optimise the observing system and recommends research priorities for the following year(s). 

The seventh issue of the SESS report will consist of updates of 12 chapters ranging from geology, biology, glaciology to the movement of the magnetic pole. The deadline for chapter submissions is 15 September 2024 and the report will be finalised in the beginning of December. An online workshop with authors is planned for April. The SESS report 2024 will be released at the beginning of the Polar Night Week in Longyearbyen.

The editorial board consists of five persons, two of which are senior researchers from SIOS member institutions and two are from the SIOS Knowledge Centre. We would like to appoint an early career scientist as fifth member of the editorial board.