As a person with experience of polar fieldwork, we invite you to participate in this survey. We aim to document and gather empirical evidence on the polar fieldwork experiences of researchers who identify as women. We are a research collective of female PhD students and APECS members from Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, and the UK working together on a review article on this topic as part of a collaboration between the journal PLOS Climate with members of APECS, the Association for Polar Early Career Scientists. Our article will identify recent developments and critical points of action in this area, and propose strategies remove barriers to participation and improve the experiences of women in polar fieldwork.
Fieldwork is a broad term and we want to include any professional experience outside a traditional classroom, office, or laboratory setting. We include the Arctic, Antarctica, and the Third Pole in our scope of polar regions.
We acknowledge the significance of addressing vulnerability among various groups, including women, Indigenous peoples, people of African descent, Black, PoC, Roma, Sinti, Travelers, individuals belonging to national or ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Recognizing the sensitivity of this topic and acknowledging our limited expertise, we defer to the comprehensive global list provided by the United Nations as a reference point.
This survey will take 5 to 15 minutes to fill out, depending on how comprehensively you choose to answer. The survey is entirely voluntary and you may choose to skip any questions you do not wish to answer. All answers will remain anonymous and the data is handled according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regulations of the EU.
There are minimal risks involved in participating in this research. These risks are the potential loss of confidentiality and anonymity in case you disclose identifiable information. All necessary steps will be taken to ensure that data are only accessed by the research team. Research records will be stored securely and only approved members of the project team will have access to the records. The outcome of this survey might be published by the research team, e.g., at conferences or as a research article.
Please note: The survey data will be reported only in an aggregated form or in a manner that does not allow individual responses to be identified.
If you have any questions or comments relating to the survey, please email the team at polarsurvey2023@polarnetwork.org.
Thank you in advance for your participation!
The survey team:
Maria Dance, Rebecca Julianne Duncan, Marjolein Gevers, Eleanor Maedhbh Honan, Vanessa Pitusi, Elaine Runge, Florina Schalamon and Daniela Walch
