«Akademik Vernadsky» station and the RV «Noosphere» will join the international network
of infrastructures for polar research, which will allow Ukraine to attract additional funds to the
Antarctic program, and Ukrainian scientists to use polar facilities of other countries and
participate in important scientific initiatives. This is envisaged by the «POLARIN: POLAr
Research Infrastructure Network» project, which won the competition in the EU Horizon
Europe program.
It involves the National Antarctic Scientific Centre, all EU polar research operators,
as well as relevant operators from Chile, Canada, the USA, Great Britain and other
countries. In total, these are 50 organizations and 79 infrastructure facilities in both polar
regions – the Arctic and the Antarctic. In particular, 38 research stations, 12 ships, 18
observatories, 4 repositories, 7 databases.
«The polar regions are the fastest to respond to the changes of our planet, they are
like two wrists by which you can measure the "pulse of the Earth". We already see how
rapidly the Arctic and Antarctic are losing ice cover due to global warming and human
intervention. In order to comprehensively study and predict such processes, scientists need
wider access to polar infrastructures. That is, the researcher should not be limited to data of
only the location of the station of his country, but should have access to different observation
points to obtain more information and compare it. This is exactly what the POLARIN project
envisages: each member of the consortium can use the infrastructure of other participants
for his/her research. It can also be a collaboration of several organizations for joint research of complex
problems», – explained Evgen Dykyi, NASC Director.
«POLARIN» is designed for 2 years (2024-2025) and has a total budget of almost 14.6
million euros. Of these, more than half a million euros are provided for Ukraine: to ensure the
access of our scientists to foreign infrastructures, as well as to cover the costs of foreign
researchers’ access to Ukrainian facilities.
«This will allow us to attract additional funds for the development of international
cooperation, because, as you know, in conditions of war, the scientific budget of our country
is very limited, and the funds are spent only on urgent basic needs. So, we are actively
looking for additional opportunities to support the Ukrainian Antarctic program», – said the
NASC head.
In addition to infrastructure sharing, the project provides for data exchange and
training for young scientists.
The official signing of agreement with the EU on the implementation of POLARIN is
scheduled for November.
Recall that earlier the project with NASC participation Polar Regions in the Earth
System: understanding the polar processes in a global context in the Arctic and Antarctic
Regions (PolarRES) won the competition of the EU Horizon 2020.