On October 5th, the Reine Paola Foundation, in collaboration with the Dirk Frimout Foundation, awarded its Terre d’Avenir Prize at the Belgian Royal Palace.

Each year, the Prize rewards the projects that best promote scientific innovation in Environment, Earth, or Space related fields. 

This wonderful initiative, aimed at high school students, emphasises the importance of technical and scientific knowledge for our future generations. These young students have been given a platform to present their projects, expressing their creativity from a scientific, technical, and ecological point of view.

The award beneficiaries have been selected by three juries (one per linguistic community) composed of eminent personalities from the scientific, business, and academic fields. The jury for the French-speaking community was presided over by the International Polar Foundation President and Founder Alain Hubert.

A true inspiration for younger generations, Alain Hubert offered a speech focusing on the future of younger generations and the importance of environmental and climate change awareness.

This year, the first prize has been awarded to students from the Ecole Provinciale d'Agronomie et des Sciences (Ciney); the Robert-Schuman-Institut (Eupen); and the Vrij Technisch Instituut Sint-Lucas (Menin).

This past Sunday, October 2nd, President and Founder of the International Polar Foundation Alain Hubert took part in the “Live Magazine for kids 2022” event organised by Live Magazine and hosted by the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels

This event, specifically designed for children 12 and younger, offered an opportunity to meet and hear the stories of journalists, children’s novelists, cartoonists and young reporters. Through their speeches and presentations, these guests contributed to creating a “living newspaper”, sparking children’s curiosity and imagination.

During his contribution to the event, Alain shared his experience as a polar explorer, focusing on one of his most challenging expeditions: crossing over the North Pole on skis in 2007 with his friend and fellow polar explorer, Dixie Dansercoer.

Recalling this adventure, he let the audience experience a day into his life during the expedition, sharing his feelings and daily adventures. Explaining how he tamed his fears by adapting to the danger posed by the uncontrollable forces of nature, he shared the importance of paying attention to every aspect of his surroundings. Despite the danger he and Dixie faced every day, he focused on the beauty and wonder that characterised their expedition, such as an interesting encounter they had with a mother polar bear and her little cub!

On Wednesday, September 14th, Alain Hubert, President and Founder of the International Polar Foundation, joined the first event of the “Frites & Sciences” series.

This delicious initiative hosted every Wednesday afternoon by Daily Science and the PATATAK friterie in St Gilles Commune in Brussels allows any science enthusiast to discover the latest scientific developments, discussions, and challenges - all while enjoying a portion of Belgian fries!

Sharing his numerous interests and passions, Alain Hubert made a memorable contribution to the inaugural edition of the event. Focusing on the importance of scientific innovation, he motivated everyone to hold on to their hopes and dreams - just like he did when he began his career as a polar explorer, and later when he founded the International Polar Foundation in 2002.

Alain Hubert indulged the event’s participants with stories about his first-hand experiences of trekking across the Arctic and the Antarctic. 

He also talked about one of his dearest projects: the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, the world's first (and so far only) zero-emission polar research station. Highlighting the importance of international scientific cooperation, Alain Hubert explained the station’s mission as a platform to support polar scientists from anywhere in the world in their research operations.

IPF applauds the “Frites & Sciences” initiative as a way to connect the general public with scientific research. We look forward to seeing what will be on the menu for upcoming editions!

On Monday, May 30th, IPF, Schneider Electric, and Venturi held an EU Green Week partner event in Brussels EU Quarter to showcase the technological achievements that allow the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica - the world’s first zero emission polar research station - and the Venturi Antarctica, the world’s first electric polar exploration vehicle - to reduce the environmental footprint of conducting polar research.

Dozens of people attended an opening press conference at Atelier 29. During the press conference, which was also streamed live, IPF Founder and Chairman Alain Hubert and Schneider Electric President for the Benelux Region David Orgaz D’Hollander discussed the design and implementation of renewable technologies at the polar research station. Innovations at the station include its passive design, its renewable energy production and storage, its expanded water treatment system, its smart microgrid, and its programmable logic controller, which manages how energy is used at PEA.

Venturi Chief Technical Officer Franck Baldet told the story of how the Venturi Antarctica was born from an idea that Prince Albert II of Monaco had following his visit to polar research stations across Antarctica in 2009 (including the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica). Disappointed that researchers used only polluting vehicles to get around, Venturi was tasked with creating a solution to remedy that problem.  Since then, scientists working at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica have been using it in some of their field missions and IPF crew has used it to haul heavy loads!

The press conference also featured three scientists who have taken advantage of the zero-emission station as a base from which to conduct their research. Glaciologist Sarah Wauthy (ULB), atmospheric chemistry scientist Preben Van Overmeiren (Ghent University), and Kate Winter (Northumbria University) all explained what it was like not only to live at the zero-emission station, but also to get support using renewable energy solutions such as solar panels and small wind turbines to powere instruments in the field, as well as to take a ride in the Venturi Antarctica

Following the press conference, in-person ttendees were able to learn more information about the PEA station and the Venturi Antarctica at workshops hosted by each of the partners. The event ended with a networking lunch.

Photos for sale

Everyone also had a chance to see an exhibition of 20 photos of beatiful Antarctic landscapes to celebrate IPF's 20th anniversary. The exhibition is still on display in the main hall of Atelier 29, so stop by sometime to have a look. If you like some of the photos, you can order photo prints and postcards by contacting us at events@polarfoundation.org. 

All proceeds form the sale of the photos and postcards will go towards supporting polar science.

On Monday, May 30th, the International Polar Foundation (IPF), Schneider Electric, and Venturi will host an official EU Green Week 2022 partner hybrid event, Striving to Reduce the Environmental Footprint of Polar Research.

The event will take place from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm at Atelier 29, Rue Jacques de Lalaing 29, 1000 Brussels.

From 2007-09, the International Polar Foundation, with the support of its many private sector partners and the Belgian State, designed and constructed the world’s first zero-emission polar research station - the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA).
Fully operational since 2009, the primary goal of constructing the groundbreaking station was to serve as a zero-emission platform for scientists working in the Dronning Maud Land region of East Antarctica.

Now that the revolutionary Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station has been in operation for more than a decade, IPF would like to showcase the latest innovations at the revolutionary research platform that reduce even further the environmental footprint of doing scientific research in Antarctica. Improvements and initiatives that will be explained during the event include:

• Industry-leading upgrades to the station’s renewable energy production and management;
• A brand new water treatment system with higher capacity - a system that goes above and beyond the requirements of the Madrid Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty;
• The entry into use of the Venturi Antarctica, the first electric polar exploration vehicle, which is now used to support of polar research at PEA.

While walk-ins are welcome, we would prefer it if you could please register if you plan to attend so we can adequately prepare event logistics.

Online participation is also possible. The press conference part of the event will be live streamed on the IPF's YouTube Channel. A recording of the press conference will also be posted on this channe la few days after the event.

Programme:

10:00 am - 11:00 am - PRESS CONFERENCE featuring:

Alain Hubert (Founder and Chairman, International Polar Foundation)

• David Orgaz D'Hollander (President, Benelux Region, Schneider Electric)
• Franck Baldet (CTO, Venturi)
• Sarah Wauthy (Glaciology Laboratory, Université Libre de Bruxelles)
• Preben Van Overmeiren (Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Ghent University)
• Kate Winter (Senior Lecturer in Extreme Environments, Northumbria University)

10:45 am - Q&A

11:00 am - 12:30 pm - Individual workshops on renewable technologies used at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica

IPF engineers who have been working on the latest improvements to the PEA Station and representatives from Schneider Electric and Venturi Automobiles will give in-depth workshops illustrating how the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica’s systems and the Venturi Antarctica function. They will answer any in-depth questions the press, policymakers, and the general public may have about the groundbreaking station, its technical aspects, and the Venturi Antarctica electric vehicle.

12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Walking lunch

You are welcome to contact us by email at events@polarfoundation.org or by phone at +32 2 520 34 40 if you have any questions about the event.

Antarctic photos for sale

For those interested in beautiful photos of Antarctic landscapes and animals, as well as a few photos of the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, IPF will also have several magnificent photos on display at the event. Personalised prints of each photo can be ordered. Proceeds will go towards supporting the work of the International Polar Foundation.  More information can be obtained at the Green Week event or by contacting us at events@polarfoundation.org .

The International Polar Foundation together with APECS Belgium and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences are proud to present Nocturnes on Ice, a polar photography exhibition opening on Thursday, May 19th at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels.

The opening event for the exhibition will start at 5 pm and will feature workshops and a chance to meet some of the people who took the photos featured in the exhibition, including some International Polar Foundation staff members. Visitors attending the opening night of the exhibition will also be able to learn more about the work being done at the world’s first zero emission polar research station, the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, from IPF staff who have contributed photos.

Scientists, logisticians, and technicians who have participated in Belgian polar research expeditions have contributed photos to the exhibition. The goal is to raise awareness of the current issues affecting the polar regions, including unprecedented climate change.

Special thanks goes out to Nicolas Herinckx, Henri Robert, Martin Leitl, and Timothée Grosrenaud from IPF, as well as Sarah Del Ben from Venturi.

The exhibition will remain open to the public through Sunday, May 22nd.

Brussels Nocturnes is a citywide project that allows the public to visit different museums and art centres around Brussels at night.

We look forward to seeing everyone at the exhibition.

The International Polar Foundation is happy to announce that Marie-Anne Coninsx, Former EU Ambassador at Large for the Arctic, has joined the Board of IPF Directors.

Ms. Coninsx’s extensive experience and knowledge about the Arctic will be a great support to the work the Foundation does. As a Senior Associate Fellow at Egmont - the Royal Institute for International Relations (Belgium), Ms. Coninsx is associated with the institute’s European Affairs Program, focusing on Arctic affairs.

Ms. Coninsx has also a 35-year long career working for the EU, affording her diverse experience in foreign affairs.

Additionally, Ms. Coninsx has been an active member of the Steering Committee of the Arctic Futures Symposium and participant in the symposium for several years. We are grateful for her invaluable contributions over the years.

We look forward to working together with her on developing different projects in the coming years.

For more information, please consult the press release from 3 May.

In February 2019, IPF Founder and BELARE Expedition Leader Alain Hubert assisted American artist Jessica Houston with the unique Letter to the Future project in which Alain placed a time capusule in the ice in Antarctica to be found by future generations a thousand years from now. The project is curently being exhibited at the Estonian Pavillion at the Venice Bienniale.

Jessica wanted to address future generations by sending them cultural testimony through ice and time. She devised Letter to the Future , which includes a variety of contributors from around the world who contributed letters to be read by future generations. Noteworthy letter writers include poet Anne Michaels, former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council Okalik Eegeesiak, and Polar Explorer Bernard Voyer.

Jessica collected all of the unopened letters and put them into a 40 cm x 6.4 cm time capsule, which consists of a Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) instrument, an oceanographic tool typically used to measure the paramenters its name suggests. She then sent the time capsule to Alain Hubert to deploy it while in Antarctica during the 2018-2019 resaerch season.

While taking annual snow depth measurments for the GLACIOCLIM project in February 2019, Alain Hubert deployed the time capsule by placing it in a shallow hole he drilled in the ice sheet. The idea is that over the next thousand years or so, as the ice on the surface of the ice sheet slowly flows towards the coast of Antarctica, the time capsule will eventually arrive at the coast and be released from the ice. They hope it will then wash up on a shore somewhere and be found by people in the future.

When asked why he wanted to contribute to the project, Alain said, "I like contributing to projects related to future generations. The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was built to make the world better for futre generations."

“Letter to the Future is a 1,000-year collaboration with ice to provoke consideration of our present and the possibilities for our future,” according to the project website.

This work of Jessica Houston will be exposed in Venice as part of the exhibition Terra Nova: looking at the present and the future presented by Art Mûr Gallery, from April 21st - July 2nd, 2022 at the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Lego e Legno Art Space, Guidecca 211.

On Tuesday, April 5th the International Polar Foundation and the Network of European Blue Schools offered a special workshop for teachers and educators to present an overview of existing Arctic Ocean-related education materials and practices in schools.

The workshop was part of the "Let's Listen to the Arctic Ocean" series, a group of of virtual ocean literacy events the EU4Ocean Coalition organised that took place between April 5th and 8th, with the support of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE). 

After Evy Copejans from the Network of European Blue Schools introduced the workshop, Mieke Sterken, IPF's Education and Outreach Coordinator, opened the workshop with an interactive icebreaker that allowed participants from all over Europe to get to know one another by sharing their location, the kind of students and courses they taught, how they perceived the Arctic, and what they would consider to be good educational resources. 

Following this, guest speaker Dr. Lars Demant-Poort from the Greenland Institute for Natural Sciences offered valuable insights to participants about why educators and European Youth should be aware about what's happening in the Arctic, and why processes of climate warming on land cannot be ignored when studying changes in the Arctic Ocean.  

To round out the workshop, Mieke presented a number of educational tools teachers can make use of to plan their lessons about the Arctic, including materials from the INTAROS, MOSAIC, and EDU-ARCTIC2 projects, as well as IPF's own EducaPoles website, which contains several ready-made educational packages, and DIY-resources to compliment their lessons with contemporary GIS-based data or citizen science initiatives. The participants in the workshop were very appreciative to learn about the large number of tools available to support their lessons in the classroom.

On Friday, April 9th, Mieke summarized the outcomes of the education workshop during an online EU4Oceans closing session, where all workshop conveners came together to share their experiences and insights and answer questions from the public.

A commitment to educating the next generation

This workshop is just part of IPF’s extensive education and outreach work.

During the 2021-22 season, Henri Robert, IPF Science Liaison Officer and the Deputy Station Manager at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station, and Johnny Gaelens, the PEA Station's Chief Engineer, held regular interactive online lessons with schools from Belgium and around the world. The IPF has offered online lessons with classrooms from the world's first zero-emission polar research station since it became operational during the 2008-09 season.

Since January, IPF Education and Outreach Coordinator Mieke Sterken has been visiting schools (primary, secondary, and college) throughout Belgium to give in-person lessons about the Polar Regions within the framework of a new education and outreach policy which included developing new educational resources. She will visit more schools in the coming months in order to test different educational ideas and formats.

If you're interested to collaborate with IPF or book an in-person or online lesson, you may contact us at education@polarfoundation.org

The final days of the 2021-22 season are upon us and they have been busy ones as we prepare to leave the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on her own until the next team arrives in November.

With the water treatment system closed down, the last few days at the station are a bit like camping as we wait for the plane to take them to Novo Station and then on to Cape Town. We hope to be in Cape Town within the coming days.

In service to science

Scientific equipment at the station relies heavily on the station's systems to continue functioning properly. They have to continue collecting data for scientists autonomously and sending it to Europe throughout the austral winter. So the station needs to be able to keep running on its own.

Over the last few days of the season, Station Engineer Johnny Gaelens and the rest of the IPF technical team have been checking and double-checking to make sure that every single system at the station is working properly, and that it has a redundant system to back it up just in case there’s an issue with the main systems.  Checking that all these backup systems are properly functioning is a painstaking but extremely important process.

For example, the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), which is the brain of the station that prioritises energy use in the building, has a backup PLC.  And the satellite communications system is backed up with iridium and Inmarsat systems.

Any data collected during the season that can’t be sent via satellite is put on a hard drive and is taken back to Europe with the final team to leave the station for the season. Along wiht many other things, we're repatriating a whopping 1.5 Terabytes of data for scientists this season!

The same is true for any scientific instruments that aren’t stored at the station during the winter. These instruments also head back to Europe with the team, where scientists can recalibrate them or preform any other necessary maintenance on them.

Dormant energy needs

The Princess Elisabeth will continue to produce energy for all these systems to run on throughout the winter. However, as the days become shorter and shorter and there is less and less sunlight to power the solar panels (many of which have been boarded up anyway to protect them against damage during the winter), the station will rely increasingly on its wind turbines to produce energy. Between May 15th and July 28th the sun won’t rise above the horizon at all at PEA. The station will experience polar night for more than two months, with only about two hours of twilight around midday on the winter solstice.

In the event that the wind turbines don’t produce enough energy to keep the batteries charged and the systems running, there is an emergency genset that can start up to charge the batteries. However the station’s energy needs during the winter are so low and there are usually enough katabatic winds coming form the interior of the continent that this raerley, if ever, happens.

An accompllished season

As we close out the 2021-22 season, we are proud to say that the station again ran entirely on renewable energy over the course of the nearly four months it was occupied. At no time was it necessary to start the genset to recharge the batteries.

What’s more, back in December, the Princess got an electric vehicle to accompany it. The pioneering Venturi Antarctica will remain at the station during the winter to welcome us back when we return in November.

Together with the zero-emission target reached and despite several difficulties during this particular expedition, the IPF team will soon leave the station with the satisfaction of having executed a successful mission. Only one team of scientists was obliged to postpone their participation due to unprecedented bad weather conditions in the vicinity of the Sør Rondane Mountains this past season.

All other scientific teams who were scheduled to condouct reeaserch at the Pricness Elisabeth Antarctica completed their missions and head home knowing that they accomplished world-class research in Antarctica. Datasets are already being processed and samples will be shipped to research institutions and universities for study.

Throughout the winter, PEA will continue to collect data for scientists until it's time for BELARE 2022-23 to start. We're looking forward to that moment with great enthusiasm!