international
polar
foundation

The International Polar Foundation’s outreach activities towards young students through educational Skype classes have always been welcomed with enthusiasm since they were started more than 10 years ago, soon after the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was built.

The Princess Elisabeth Antarctica was recently featured on the Croatian TV show, "Dobro jutro, Hrvatska (Good Morning, Croatia)". A live studio audience listened intently to two members of the International Polar Foundation staff working at the research station.

The scientific teams scheduled to conduct research during the second half of the 2019-2020 season arrived at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica on January 13th, and were welcomed to a station in full swing. After following the usually necessary first aid and safety training required of all newcomers to the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica, researchers from the BioFe, BELAM, and MICROBIAN projects got to work on their respective research objectives for the season.

A long range wireless link has been established connecting the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station to the new Perseus Intercontinental Airstrip - and it runs on renewable solar power!

New Year’s falls right in the middle of the austral summer season for the team at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research station. The passing from one year to the next serves as a divide between the first and second halves of the season.

It’s the end of the year, and already the first teams of scientists for the 2019-2020 season have come and gone.

The two cooks whose job it is to feed the hungry BELARE team - Christine and Guillaume - offered a glimpse into Christmas traditions and preparations for Christmas Eve Dinner at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

Already several weeks into the new season, the old garage on the north side of the station is in the process of being torn down while the anchor points for its replacement are being installed.

Scientists who are concerned about the carbon footprint that doing research in Antarctica can leave are certainly happy that the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica - the world’s first polar research station designed and built to run entirely on renewable energy - goes a long way in reducing the carbon footprint their research leaves. However, when scientists need to conduct research in the field for extended periods of time, they often need to take diesel-powered generators to run their scientific equipment.

On the morning of Saturday 7 December 2019, scientists from different parts of the world joined the operational team of the International Polar Foundation working at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica station to express their support for Climate Express, the Climate Coalition, and many other NGOs for the "United for Climate - Human Chain" awareness-raising campaign by symbolically stretching the human chain they plan to make in Brussels on Sunday 8 December all the way to Antarctica.