EU-PolarNet 2

With communities and ecosystems subject to multiple environmental, climatic, cultural and economic stresses, the Polar Regions truly represent the sentinel of climate change. Already now, changes in the Polar Regions are changing the lives of polar residents, and are affecting the well-being of many polar communities. Furthermore, the state of the Polar systems has far reaching effects on atmosphere, ocean and land including the change of weather pattern in Europe. Polar issues have been therefore rising up the political agenda across Europe over the past decade and the European Union and its executive body, the EC, attribute an increasing importance to science and innovation in the high latitudes and are major investors in Polar research. There is therefore an increasing need to further develop the coordination of Polar research actions in Europe to give evidence-based advice to decision makers. This must include a continued involvement of all relevant stake- and right holders to develop transdisciplinary and transnational projects to tackle societally relevant problems connected to the Polar Regions. EU-PolarNet 2 will provide a coordination platform to co-develop strategies to advance the European Polar Research action and its contribution to the policy-making processes. It will operate as such a platform for the 4-years of the project´s lifetime. Once EU-PolarNet 2 ends, the gained experience, the established network and the developed tools to facilitate better coordination and co-design of Polar research actions will be transferred to the European Polar Coordination Office to be sustained. The EU-PolarNet 2 consortium consist of 25 partners representing all European and associated countries with Polar research programmes and activities. This allows EU-PolarNet 2 to significantly improve the coordination and co-design of European Polar research actions but also to provide evidence-based advice on behalf of the whole European Polar community.