international
polar
foundation

On request from the IPF, the Norwegian Polar Institute office in Longyearbyen kindly organised a field training course for some of the BELARE 2007-2008 team at the beginning of October 2007.

The dismantling team of Princess Elisabeth Station in Brussels did not waste any time. As of Monday September 10th, around 25 workers were already on site to help bring down the station.

The Princess Elisabeth Station was inaugurated by Prince Philip on September 5th after an international press conference held at Tour & Taxis in Brussels. Belgium's new Antarctic research station was conceived and built by the International Polar Foundation with the help of its financial and technical partners.

Members of the Royal Family inaugurated the "Science & Culture at the Palace" exhibition today, together with Marc Verwilghen, Minister of the Belgian Science Policy. On this occasion, Alain Hubert presented a model of the new Belgian Antarctic Station to the 6 years old Princess Elisabeth, daughter of Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde, after whom the station was named.

The IPF project team and Prefalux deal with the building modules neeeded to assemble the Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Station. Production has been picking up pace in the last weeks and almost all modules are now ready. Various stages of production are detailed in the picture gallery accompanying this news.

The InBev-Baillet Latour Fund and the International Polar Foundation have joined together to offer a 150 000€ scientific grant for studying climate and environmental change in Antarctica.

The International Polar Foundation awarded the French-speaking school "Lycée Berlaymont" the IPF special prize during the Energy and Environment Award 2007 ceremony on Friday June 1st.

A special edition of the Matière Grise RTBF programme will feature a unique document, supported by exclusive images which were filmed during the latest BELARE expedition. It presents the carriage of the first structural elements of the Princess Elisabeth research station which were delivered last winter to the very heart of Antarctica.

The IPF was comissionned by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) to create a movie for the 2007 World Meteorological Day. The theme of this year was: "Polar meteorology: Understanding global impacts".

Wondering how you can act against Climate Change? This is it! Last week, a massive awareness campaign was launched throughout Belgium in order to raise public interest in the construction of the Princess Elisabeth research station.