The Vernadsky Research Base (the Ukrainian Antarctic station) and the Noosfera polar supply and research ship will become part of the international network of polar research infrastructure, which will enable Ukraine to access additional funding for its Antarctic program and allow Ukrainian scientists to use other countries’ polar facilities and participate in important scientific initiatives. This is envisaged by the “POLARIN: POLAr Research Infrastructure Network,” which won the relevant competition organized by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program.
The National Antarctic Scientific Center announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
The “POLARIN: POLAr Research Infrastructure Network” project involves Ukraine’s National Antarctic Scientific Center and all the European Union’s polar research operators, as well as polar research operators from Chile, Canada, the United States, Great Britain, and other countries. In total, the project involves 50 organizations and 79 infrastructure facilities in the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions, including 38 research stations, 12 ships, 18 observatories, four repositories, and seven databases.
POLARIN is designed for two years (2024-2025) and has a total budget of almost EUR 14.6 million.
Of this, more than EUR 0.5 million is earmarked for Ukraine: to enable Ukrainian scientists to access foreign infrastructures, as well as to cover the costs of foreign researchers’ access to Ukrainian facilities.
