Tell us how to engage you!:Asking polar stakeholders about their engagement preferences

The changes the polar regions face are too complex to be tackled by single scientific disciplines and in isolation from societal actors. Therefore, the call for polar research projects that engage with stakeholders outside academia increases. The ideal set-up of these projects is envisioned as an inclusive and action-oriented process that brings scientists and stakeholders together to identify pressing issues of societal and scientific relevance and to develop research projects that produce practical outcomes. However, working across disciplines and knowledge systems can be challenging. To better understand stakeholders’ motivation for engaging in polar science projects, to learn what stages of a project they are interested in and what their preferred modes of engagement are, stakeholders were surveyed as part of the EU-funded project EU-PolarNet. The results suggest that while most academic survey participants are eager to participate from problem definition to dissemination of results, most non-academic survey participants preferred interaction at the stages when results were disseminated and used for informed decision-making. The survey results have their limitations, yet they provide a basis for important future approaches to stakeholder engagement in polar research projects. They show that stakeholders prefer to engage in different stages of a research project depending on their specific needs and interests, while also acknowledging that additional support may be required to enable meaningful engagement throughout the research process

Exploring the explorers: studying the mood, mental health, cognition and the lived experience of extreme environments in a small isolated team confined to an Arctic research station

Background: The human ability to adapt to extreme environments is fascinating. Research into this adaptation has been lacking in Arctic isolated teams because it has concentrated on Antarctic teams. The hazards of the poles often confine the researchers indoors with their colleagues, reducing their privacy. This deployment also limits their contact with loved ones at home. Subsequently, over the course of polar night, rates of anxiety, depression, irritability and sleep disturbance increase (Suedfeld & Palinkas, 2008). Often, the teams complain of cognitive impairments. The High Arctic’s distinctive feature is the polar bear. The presence of bears requires Arctic research station teams to handle fire arms for their personal safety. It also means that fire arms – which are highly restricted in the Antarctic – are ever-present and easily accessible at Arctic stations. This poses a unique psychological challenge for these teams which has not been well-researched. Methodology: This thesis is an original contribution to science in that it employs a mixed-methods approach combining phenomenological interviews, cognitive testing and mental health assessment via questionnaires with a team spending a year at the Polish Polar Station, Hornsund, Svalbard. The participants were ten of the eleven winter team members who spent the year between July 2015 and June 2016 at Hornsund (“Explorers”) and an age-/gender-/education-matched control group (“Controls”). They filled in the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised and the Profile of Mood States-Brief Version in July, September, January, April and June of that year. Cognitive testing was completed in September, January and June; it comprised the Figural Learning and Memory Test, the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART), the elevator tasks of the Test of Everyday Attention (TEA) and the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices. The interviews took place at the same time as the cognitive testing. Results: The results showed that the most stressful time reported in the questionnaires was April 2016, just after the winter isolation had ended and the sun had risen again. The Explorers reported little subjective complaints about their cognition but they performed near-ceiling on the TEA while scoring far below their Controls on the SART. This implies a dichotomy between sustained attention and inhibition in the Explorers. Their lived experiences were shaped by a struggle to adapt to the other team members rather than by struggling to adapt to the hazardous environment. The environment was perceived as awe-inspiring. Over time, the Explorers shifted their view of the team from informal colleagues to a family which they did not choose to be a member of and then, to friends. Unanimously, other people were seen as the most difficult aspect of the mission. Conclusions: This thesis provides unique insight into a non-Anglo-Saxon Arctic wintering team: the conclusions suggest that participants should receive social training to get along better and be emotionally prepared. The findings can be implemented by my research partner, the Institute of Geophysics (Warsaw) to better select and prepare their future expeditions to Hornsund. Some of the insights such as the nature of the interpersonal stressors may be applicable to space missions

The SDGs and the Arctic: The need for polar indicators

Our understanding of the Arctic rests to a great extent on the capacity to build long-term observations series. The overall aim of these scientifically based observations is to reach a sustainable development that counter-acts the troublesome future scenario we foresee today. While major drivers of climate change are found outside the Arctic, there is nevertheless a strong need also for the four million people that live in the Arctic to act responsible in order to create capacity for sustainable development. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an important framework for both guiding a sustainable development of the region, as well as for improving existing and developing new observation and monitoring systems for the Arctic. This allows an approach where the challenges, changes and the adaptation potential of societies and the ecological systems can be well monitored

Analysis of Regional Climate Strategies in the Barents Region

Climate change is a global phenomenon with especially harsh effects on the Arctic and northern regions. The Arctic’s average temperature has risen at almost twice the rate as elsewhere in the past few decades. Since 1966, the Arctic land area covered by snow in early summer has shrunk by almost a fifth. The Barents Region consists of the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia (i.e. the European part of Russia). Climate change will cause serious impacts in the Barents Region because of its higher density of population living under harsh climatic conditions, thus setting it apart from other Arctic areas. In many cases, economic activities, like tourism, rely on certain weather conditions. For this reason, climate change and adaptation to it is of special urgency for the region.Regional climate change strategies are important tools for addressing mitigation and adaptation to climate change as they can be used to consolidate the efforts of different stakeholders of the public and private sectors. Regional strategies can be important factors in achieving the national and international goals.The study evaluated how the national climate change goals were implemented in the regional and local strategies and programmes in northern Finland. The specific goal was to describe the processes by which the regional strategies were prepared and implemented, and how the work was expanded to include the whole of northern Finland. Finally, the Finnish preparatory processes were compared to case examples of processes for preparing climate change strategies elsewhere in the Barents Region. This analysis provides examples of good practices in preparing a climate change strategy and implementing it

White paper on Terrestrial Ecological and Environmental Research Infrastructures in Finland: Analysis of the current landscape and proposal for future steps

This White Paper presents a vision of globally leading, scientifically important and socially relevant environmental research infrastructures (RIs) in Finland, and identifies what we consider as the key issues to be developed to improve the impact and to support the Finnish national infrastructures in their international visibility. The focus is on: 1. The scientific questions driving the terrestrial ecosystem and environmental research globally and in Finland; 2. Specific requirements by different user groups in Finland for ecological and environmental RIs; and 3. Roadmap for the sustainable ecological and environmental RI in Finland. We also present the strategies of organizations regarding their RI development, and the existing infrastructures and networks which form the basis for future development. The final goal of this document is to encourage the development of a coherent vision at national level, and to increase the scientific significance, national synergies and benefits towards a stronger research community. The need for developing a national RI strategy for environmental field arises from the global challenges, which threaten the ecosystems’ functioning. Human activities are imposing many identified, but also previously unknown pressures to ecosystem properties and functions, which are also feeding back to the societies via the quality and quantity of ecosystem services. However, the ecosystem responses to changes in environment are in many cases poorly quantified and the studies only cover short time scales. In order to succeed in providing answers to the grand challenges (ICSU 2010), integrated research infrastructures and efficient analysis tools are crucially needed. The request to improve our knowledge of the state of the environment and the complex biosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere interactions, and to detect and analyze the impact of global change on these systems has been recognized as a general priority in developing environmental research infrastructures in EU and globally. Currently, Finland is one of the world leaders in atmospheric and environmental sciences, both in terms of research and in coordinating the European and global observation station networks and infrastructures. With this existing experience from close-by research fields and the high research outputs from ecology and ecophysiology in our research organizations, Finland has also the potential to actively promote the ecosystem RI concept, and to act as an example of integrated RIs for other countries. The vision is to develop the capacity of the Finnish ecosystem research community to integrate, upscale and synthesize the observations with relevant holistic process understanding as well as open and reliable data management practices. This can be implemented by creating functional and cost-efficient in-situ platforms and by providing quality-checked data in findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) manner for high-level environmental research. This White paper was made in connection with the INAR Ecosystems initiative funded by Academy of Finland and updated with proceeding of European processes, and it provides a starting point for national cooperation in environmental research infrastructures. Keywords: Terrestrial ecosystems, research infrastructures, ESFRI</p

White paper on Terrestrial Ecological and Environmental Research Infrastructures in Finland

This White Paper presents a vision of globally leading, scientifically important and socially relevant environmental research infrastructures (RIs) in Finland, and identifies what we consider as the key issues to be developed to improve the impact and to support the Finnish national infrastructures in their international visibility. The focus is on: 1. The scientific questions driving the terrestrial ecosystem and environmental research globally and in Finland; 2. Specific requirements by different user groups in Finland for ecological and environmental RIs; and 3. Roadmap for the sustainable ecological and environmental RI in Finland. We also present the strategies of organizations regarding their RI development, and the existing infrastructures and networks which form the basis for future development. The final goal of this document is to encourage the development of a coherent vision at national level, and to increase the scientific significance, national synergies and benefits towards a stronger research community. The need for developing a national RI strategy for environmental field arises from the global challenges, which threaten the ecosystems’ functioning. Human activities are imposing many identified, but also previously unknown pressures to ecosystem properties and functions, which are also feeding back to the societies via the quality and quantity of ecosystem services. However, the ecosystem responses to changes in environment are in many cases poorly quantified and the studies only cover short time scales. In order to succeed in providing answers to the grand challenges (ICSU 2010), integrated research infrastructures and efficient analysis tools are crucially needed. The request to improve our knowledge of the state of the environment and the complex biosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere interactions, and to detect and analyze the impact of global change on these systems has been recognized as a general priority in developing environmental research infrastructures in EU and globally. Currently, Finland is one of the world leaders in atmospheric and environmental sciences, both in terms of research and in coordinating the European and global observation station networks and infrastructures. With this existing experience from close-by research fields and the high research outputs from ecology and ecophysiology in our research organizations, Finland has also the potential to actively promote the ecosystem RI concept, and to act as an example of integrated RIs for other countries. The vision is to develop the capacity of the Finnish ecosystem research community to integrate, upscale and synthesize the observations with relevant holistic process understanding as well as open and reliable data management practices. This can be implemented by creating functional and cost-efficient in-situ platforms and by providing quality-checked data in findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) manner for high-level environmental research. This White paper was made in connection with the INAR Ecosystems initiative funded by Academy of Finland and updated with proceeding of European processes, and it provides a starting point for national cooperation in environmental research infrastructures