The final symposium of the EU-funded EU-PolarNet project, titled “Together for the Poles - Advancing European Polar Research through Collaboration,” took place on 19 November at the Mission of Norway to the EU (Norway House) in Brussels.

As the world’s largest consortium of scientific expertise and infrastructure for polar research, EU-PolarNet has, since 2015, developed effective and societally relevant polar research priorities in close cooperation with stakeholders and rightsholders. These cooperative efforts address the urgent need for deeper knowledge about the changes observed in the Arctic and Antarctic and their local, regional, and global effects.

The symposium provided an opportunity to share results and experiences from nine years of collaborative work and introduced the future European cooperation platform: the European Polar Coordination Office (EPCO), which was presented by M. Grigoratou, the new EPB Executive Secretary.

Starting in January 2025, EPCO will be hosted by the EPB Secretariat in Umeå, Sweden, and will serve as a single contact point connecting the European science community with the European Commission, other policymakers, decision-makers, and relevant stakeholders.

The new location of the EPB Secretariat was introduced by K Larson, Director of the Arctic Centre at Umeå University.

Learn more about EPCO here:https://www.europeanpolarboard.org/epco/
Learn more about the symposium here:https://eu-polarnet.eu/eu-polarnet-town-hall/