About the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists

The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) grew out of the 4th International Polar Year (IPY-4) 2007-08.  IPY-4 occurred at a time of increasing scientific and public interest in the polar regions, centered on global climate change, and through enhanced scientific understanding, media attention, primary and secondary school (K-12) educational programs, and public literacy campaigns connected with climate change. Research and Educational Outreach activities of IPY-4 sought to improve both our understanding and our communication of all aspects of the Polar Regions and their broader global connections.

Present-day environmental, ecological, social and geopolitical changes in the Polar Regions are expected to continue and become even more pressing. Fully understanding them and their global connections and impacts, will require innovative, transformative, international and interdisciplinary polar research. The need to stimulate and nurture the next generation of researchers is crucial to achieving these goals. An important objective of IPY is to ensure a legacy of continued polar research and literacy by encouraging the development of the next generation of researchers and educators with interests in the Polar Regions and the broader Cryosphere. APECS was founded as a response to these needs and as a legacy of the IPY -4 Project 168, the International Youth Steering Committee.

MISSION STATEMENT
APECS is an international and interdisciplinary organization for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, early faculty members, educators and others with interests in Polar Regions and the wider cryosphere. Our aims are to stimulate interdisciplinary and international research collaborations, and develop effective future leaders in polar research, education and outreach. We seek to achieve these aims by:

• Facilitating international and interdisciplinary networking to share ideas and experiences and to develop new research directions and collaborations;
• Providing opportunities for professional career development; and
• Promoting education and outreach as an integral component of polar research and to stimulate future generations of polar researchers.

OUR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
APECS’ goals include creating opportunities for the development of innovative, international, and interdisciplinary collaborations among current early career polar researchers as well as recruiting, retaining and promoting the next generation of polar enthusiasts. Specifically we aim to:

• Create a network of polar researchers across disciplines and national boundaries to meet, share ideas and experiences, and develop new research directions and collaborations
• Provide the opportunity for career development for both traditional and alternative polar and cryosphere professions
• Promote education and outreach as an integral component of polar research and to stimulate future generations of polar researchers

 

WHAT DOES APECS DO?
We are an active group of over 1200 young researchers from around the globe, working together to accomplish our goal through the following activities:

• Providing opportunities for early career researchers to work with senior researchers on polar science planning activities and developing mentoring relationships
• Hosting career development workshops, networking and round table sessions at national and international meetings together with senior mentors
• Maintaining a website with current job opportunities, upcoming polar events, a discussion forum for idea exchange, photo gallery and recent cryosphere journal publications and popular press articles
• Distributing a newsletter with new information from the website, other opportunities and career development advice from international senior researchers
• Working with polar institutions, organizations and projects to share resources to develop a Polar Career Development Guide
• Providing access to education and outreach materials generated by early career researchers that can be used for teaching polar science to a variety of age groups, concentrating on building up resources for use in tertiary education
• Recognizing outstanding achievements and contributions to polar science by early career
• researchers
• Remaining flexible in adapting new programs and initiatives to meet our members needs

BENEFITS TO MEMBERSHIP

APECS encourages all students, post-docs, early career faculty, and research associates with an interest in interdisciplinary and international polar and cryosphere research to become involved with the organization.

As an international organization, the major connecting point for our association is our website. Being an APECS member gives you access to resources that will be helpful for your career development, along the continuum of undergraduate through to successful polar researcher.  Our discussion board allows you to interact with the larger community regarding a variety of issues such as questions regarding laboratory procedures, finding out where to get polar experience, sharing stories and tips and discussing recent publications.  You also have access to a variety of RSS feeds regarding polar research all in one place – from recent news stories to the latest polar related Science paper.  We have a database of polar related job openings and several RSS feeds from other job databases.  One of the most useful benefits of membership is the membership database itself. Using this tool can help you find other people in your field asking similar questions, allowing you to meet new international colleagues, or find additional resources to help your research and career development.

Being an APECS member also gives you access to the many early career workshops and meetings that will be held in the coming months and years, as well as opportunities to serve on science planning and conference organizing committees as the voice of early career polar researchers.  The APECS meetings allow rare face-to-face contact with those involved in the field, which is both professionally and personally rewarding.  Each of these workshops will have a different focus, from very technical and technique specific to broad career development strategies. Many of these workshops will have limited openings, and being an active APECS member will give you higher priority in the application process.