Association Of Polar Early Career Scientists
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The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is a worldwide association of early career
scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...
s (
undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...
and graduate students,
postdoc A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary academ ...
s, and early career faculty) interested in the
polar regions The polar regions, also called the frigid geographical zone, zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North Pole, North and South Poles), lying within the pol ...
and the
cryosphere The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus, there ...
generally. Its mission is to raise the profile of polar scientists by providing a continuum of leadership that is both internationally and interdisciplinarily focused, and to stimulate collaborative projects. Several countries (Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany,
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States) have their own APECS chapters that focus on the needs and ideas of scholars country-wise. The APECS website serves as the main contact point for APECS members and provides forums for sharing news, connecting with other polar researchers, finding jobs, and announcing events relevant to polar research. APECS is an endorsed
International Polar Year The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred ...
(IPY) project and is considered one of the major legacies of IPY.


History and motivation

A crucial event in the formation of APECS was a meeting in Sånga Säby,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
, in September 2007. This meeting saw founders and members representatives of two key initiatives combine together under the name of APECS: the International Polar Year Youth Steering Committee (YSC) formed in 2005 and including several national YSC's, and a formative APECS, formed in 2006.


International Polar Year Youth Steering Committee

The
International Polar Year The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred ...
(IPY) Youth Steering Committee (YSC) was founded in 2005 by Amber Church and Tyler Kuhn (co-chairs, Canada), Melianie Raymond (New Zealand), Jenny Baeseman (USA), Hugues Lantuit (Germany), Elie Verleyen (Belgium) and Stef Bokhorst (The Netherlands). Its aims were to ensure that IPY's goals included the next generation of polar researchers and the world's youth were met. The YSC was designed as a decentralized institution relying on national committees, which rapidly came to life in several countries, including Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, among others. Those committees rapidly gained independence and developed their own networks as exemplified by the creation of the UK Polar Network in 2007. A contributing factor to the success of the YSC's during the IPY was strong support from the IPY International Program Office (IPO), based in Cambridge, UK, who ensured that the goals of the YSC would be heard in the community of senior researchers. The roles of Dave Carlson and Rhian Salmon, in particular, were crucial. The YSC's focus was the creation, fostering and promotion of activities geared towards youth. It largely focused on the involvement of school children and young adults in polar literacy projects and strengthening the communication between students and young researchers. Progressively, a need for a broader, more encompassing organization specifically geared towards young researchers and early career scientists arose.


Early APECS

Discussions on IPY education and outreach forums, similar initiatives in other scientific realms and the encounter of like-minded people created an awareness of the need for an organization driven by and serving early career researchers, focused on science and career development, unlike the YSC. In the autumn of 2006, to address these needs, Jenny Baeseman (USA), Hugues Lantuit (Germany) and Rhian Salmon (UK) laid the grounds for the rationale, structure, connections and future activities of APECS. The acronym was coined at the time and a nascent APECS was launched massively in early 2007, at the start of the IPY with Baseman and Lantuit as co-directors. In March 2007, discussions were initiated by the directors with the
International Arctic Science Committee The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC)is a non-governmental, international scientific organization. IASC was founded in 1990 by representatives of national scientific organizations of the eight Arctic countries - Canada, Denmark, Finla ...
(IASC) and the
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an interdisciplinary body of the International Science Council, International Science Council (ISC). SCAR coordinates international scientific research efforts in Antarctica, including th ...
(SCAR) to offer APECS' services as representative of early career researchers in polar science. This early version of APECS then started evolving to serve better the needs of early career researchers interested in the polar regions and the wider
cryosphere The cryosphere is an umbrella term for those portions of Earth's surface where water is in solid form. This includes sea ice, ice on lakes or rivers, snow, glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets, and frozen ground (which includes permafrost). Thus, there ...
. The YSC's activities developed concurrently with many (if not most) of the early career researchers involved in both organizations. Its scope, however, was limited in time, since it mainly focused on creating activities during the 2007/2008 IPY. The need to ensure the continuation of successful initiatives and activities after the IPY led to brainstorming on post-IPY legacy. At the same time, the increase in young researcher initiatives in polar science started to create some confusion in the scientific community, questioning the structure, coordination and even the relevance of such organizations.


Sånga Säby meeting

To address these issues, a meeting was organized at Sånga Säby outside
Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
in September 2007 to bring together all these groups and prepare some long-term sustainable plans. The meeting was sponsored by the Swedish company Serla, the IPY IPO, and other international polar science entities. The key outcomes of this meeting were the decisions to merge these groups, including the YSC, into one organization, retaining the name of APECS, and that APECS should adapt its structure to reflect better the multifaceted nature of its membership. This established APECS as a legacy of the YSC and other IPY projects. A new structure was launched at the end of the meeting including working groups, an advisory committee, an interim Council of the 24 attending participants (see below), an interim Executive Committee elected by the council Kriss Rokkan Iversen (Norway), Narelle Baker (UK), Hugues Lantuit (Germany), Dan Pringle (USA), and José Xavier (Portugal), and Jen Baeseman (USA) was appointed as an interim director. Kriss Rokkan Iversen received unanimous support of all voters and appointed by the Executive Committee as the interim President of APECS.


2008-Present

The Executive Committee and Director were charged with establishing APECS as an organization over the next 6–12 months. A report of activities in this period was made at the online APECS Council Meeting, 21 May 2008. Key progress included forming an international Advisory Committee of senior researchers and science administrators to provide guidance and support. A website was developed by in kind support from Iceland-based Arctic Portal through the generous support of director Halldór Jóhannsson. The website was established as a virtual home of APECS and amongst other features, includes study and job opportunities, meetings, news updates, and a discussion forum. The executive committee met in March 2008 in Akureyri, Iceland to address strategic planning for APECS and draft the documents that will help sustain this organization for year to come: the Terms of Reference and the Rules of Procedure. This meeting was coordinated by Halldór Jóhannsson and supported by the University of Akureyri, Northern Research Forum and the Arctic Portal. The ROP and TOR included a revision from the interim APECS structure to an open Council who elect an Executive Committee. The Council controls issues related to APECS governance and structure, and is expected to act on time scales of months – years. The Executive Committee is mandated by the Council with shorter time-scale decision making and running APECS on a day-to-day basis. (See the founding ROP and TOR for details.) The organization now has an International Directorate Office hosted at the
University of Tromsø The University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway ( Norwegian: ''Universitetet i Tromsø – Norges arktiske universitet''; Northern Sami: ''Romssa universitehta – Norgga árktalaš universitehta'') is a state university in Norway a ...
, Norway.


Membership

The association represents people with a wide range of scientific expertise and interests including
glaciology Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or, more generally, ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, clim ...
,
geology Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...
,
geodesy Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...
,
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...
,
sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...
,
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...
,
atmospheric science Atmospheric science is the study of the Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere and its various inner-working physical processes. Meteorology includes atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric physics with a major focus on weather forecasting. Clima ...
,
oceanography Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of to ...
, polar
biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...
, culture and
heritage Heritage may refer to: History and society * A heritage asset A heritage asset is an item which has value because of its contribution to a nation's society, knowledge and/or culture. Such items are usually physical assets, but some countries also ...
studies,
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
,
space Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless ...
studies,
biogeochemistry Biogeochemistry is the Branches of science, scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemistry, chemical, physics, physical, geology, geological, and biology, biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natu ...
, and
paleontology Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure ge ...
. Membership in APECS is free and open to all early career scientists interested in
natural Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part ...
and
social science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...
s of the polar regions, from undergraduates through assistant professors or equivalent for non-academic positions. Participation by engineers and those interested in the cryosphere in general is also being sought. APECS encourages senior researchers to register on the APECS website and serve as
mentor Mentorship is the patronage, influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the perso ...
s for the organization as well as post job openings and events at their institutions.


External links


Association of Polar Early Career Scientists
International scientific organizations International professional associations Earth sciences organizations Professional associations based in Norway