Museums in and of the North are leading the way in creative conversations about how museums and collections can generate new narratives with old objects. Join us for a virtual roundtable discussion with Arctic museum curators and scholars speaking about museums as engines of Indigenous cultural renewal, community knowledge, decolonial efforts, creative innovation, and more.

China’s Ministry of Transport release a policy note detailing plans for a new heavy icebreaker. The document also outlines the need for a 100,000-ton semi-submersible heavy lift vessel of the type used to deliver prefabricated modules to Russia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants in the Arctic. Such a vessel would rival the world’s largest semi-submersible heavy lift ships in service today. 

Global warming has caused extreme ice melting events in Greenland to become more frequent and more intense over the past 40 years according to new research, raising sea levels and flood risk worldwide.

It started with polar bears. In 2012, polar bear DNA revealed that the iconic species had faced extinction before, likely during a warm period 130,000 years ago, but had rebounded. For researchers, the discovery led to one burning question: Could polar bears make a comeback again?

The New England Arctic Network (NEAN) will host its 2021 meeting at the University of New England in Portland, Maine. Additional information will be published soon. 

The Wilson Center's Polar Institute is pleased to co-sponsor the 14th Polar Law Symposium, which will be a hybrid event co-hosted by the Polar Cooperation Research Centre (Kobe University, Japan), Polar Law Institute (University of Akureyri, Iceland), Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law – Arctic Centre (University of Lapland, Finland), University of the Arctic and its Arctic Law Thematic Network (Finland).

Hosted entirely online the ArcticNet Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting 2021 (ASM2021) is a hub for Arctic research in Canada. The ASM2021 brings together researchers from the natural, health, and social sciences to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing Arctic region, shaped by climate change and modernization. This conference will push the boundaries of our collective understanding of the Arctic and strengthen our ability to address the Arctic issues of today and tomorrow.

The National Academies’ Polar Research Board is convening the following session at the Fall AGU meeting.

Arctic Symposium 2022 continues momentum in Arctic defense and security collaboration established in prior ALCOM-hosted events. AAS22 seeks to address the challenges faced by the U.S. military and our allies and partners in understanding and responding to our respective national interests. AAS22 is planned and organized by the Arctic Domain Awareness Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) in support and in compliance to guidance from Alaskan Command (ALCOM) Staff and Commander. More information available soon.

The participants in the forum will focus on improving the living standards in the Arctic region, preserving its unique ecological potential, ensuring sustainable socioeconomic development in polar territories, and strengthening international cooperation to this end. The IAF is a unique space for constructive cooperation with international and regional organizations and an opportunity to focus on Russian and international priorities, including climate change, the environment, economic cooperation in the Arctic, sustainable development of transport infrastructure, and human capital development.

Organizers announce, that due to the coronavirus outbreak, the 2nd Symposium on Polar Microbes and Viruses has been postponed to 2022. This symposium will bring together molecular microbial ecologists specializing in different organism groups to share our latest results and discuss methodological problems, as well as future prospects in the field, including practical international collaborations. The environmental focus will be on cryospheric environments including sea ice, glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost, but excellent research in other polar environments is also invited. The methods to be discussed will focus on 'omics' techniques, ranging from single cells to metagenomes, but research using additional methods is encouraged as well.