On 19 December, the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SERI announced the renewal of SPI’s national status and an increased budget for the period 2025-2028. We are thankful for the renewed trust and the recognition of the important contributions of the Swiss polar and high-altitude science community.

The Swiss Polar Institute is the owner and custodian of printed heritage and cultural documents relating to the polar and high-altitude regions. To establish a catalog that can be used by both specialists and the general public, the SPI is looking for a Librarian-Documentation Specialist 60-80% Location: Energypolis Campus, Sion […]

On 30 November, the Swiss Polar Class Festival embarked around 500 visitors on a journey of discovery of polar regions for the second year running. This year’s novelty was the inaugural day dedicated to primary schools. Nine classes from Valais contributed to the content of the festival with their creations […]

The Polar Access Fund focuses on early-career researchers who plan to undertake an initial field trip to a polar region or a remote high-altitude area. The research conducted during the field trip must be inserted into an existing overarching project (e.g. to enlarge its scope or for comparisons) and be related to […]

The Swiss Polar Institute (SPI) is delighted to announce the appointment of Frédéric Herman (UNIL) as Chair and Christian Wolfrum (ETH Zurich) as Vice-Chair of the SPI Foundation Board. Their mandates will start on 1 January 2025. Earlier this year, the SPI also welcomed Virginia Richter who succeeded to her […]

Environmental impact, best practices and the importance of complementary expertise were at the heart of the exchange during the Polar Dialogue and plenary sessions “Floating Platforms in Polar Seas: Sailing for Science” at this year’s Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík. On this occasion, organisations operating various platforms in polar seas […]

Antarctica InSync (International Science & Infrastructure for Synchronous Observation) is a new major programme led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). The programme aims to better understand, protect and sustainably manage the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in the framework of the UN Decade […]

Following the agreement between Université Laval (ULaval), the Institut Nordique du Québec (INQ) and the Swiss Polar Institute (SPI), researchers based in Switzerland can have access as visiting scientists to the vessel’s annual Arctic missions as part of collaborative research projects between teams from the SPI network and researchers from […]

The calls for proposals for the SPI Exploratory Grants and SPI Technogrants are now open! The SPI Exploratory Grants support Swiss-based scientists active in polar regions (including remote high-altitude regions such as the Andes and the Himalayas) by allowing them to launch new short-term ideas such as pilot projects, fund additional fieldwork, or initiate […]