APECS international directorate to UiT and Tromsø
The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is an international and interdisciplinary organization for students, early career researchers and others working with Polar and Alpine regions and the wider cryosphere. UiT has now been chosen to lead the APECS directorate for the coming five years.
– We are very proud to have been elected to lead the APECS directorate, says UiT Rector Dag Rune Olsen.
– The Arctic dimension and supporting young polar researchers in career development across disciplines is important for UiT, as it is for APECS.
UiT’s strategic plan includes high ambitions that involves polar research. Knowledge of developments in the Arctic is central to understanding global climate change. Thus, UiT seeks to develop knowledge about the causes and effects of climate and environmental change in the Arctic region, and hosting the APECS international directorate will support this ambition.
UiT and the Norwegian Polar Institute had a common initiative to apply, and the Polar Institute and the Fram Centre will contribute both scientifically and financially to the leadership task. Today, APECS is headed by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
– Originally, 5–6 institutions were interested in taking over the leadership, but UiT was chosen, says senior adviser Kata Bohus at the Research Administration and Quality Education Section at UiT.
She led the work on the application in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Institute:
– We are a team that has put a lot of work into this application, so it is incredibly gratifying that it pays off.
– At UiT, APECS will have a platform where the organization can reach even wider to researchers and society in general, and we look forward to taking on this challenge!
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