APECS International Mentorship Award

In this category, we specifically encourage APECS members, committees (including National Committees) and project groups to nominate a mentor who has made an outstanding contribution to their APECS committees, activities or the organisation as a whole.

• Who can nominate?

  To be considered, the candidate must be nominated by an APECS member, committee (e.g. National Committee) or project group. Self-nominations will not be accepted.

• Who can be nominated?

  To be eligible for this award the candidate must have contributed significantly over a period of several years to the mentoring and fostering of early career researchers in APECS activities (e.g. in APECS project / workshops / webinars). This award may be awarded to mentors from a variety of sectors, including academia, industry, the public sector, etc.

• What needs to be included in the nomination?

  All nomination packages must be provided in English. Nomination packages must include the following:

  • a completed online nomination form.
  • Supplementary material sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. including:
    • CV of the nominee
    • Nomination letter highlighting the nominee’s mentoring towards APECS activities, projects and/or committees and covering the questions such as:
      • The commitment of the nominee towards early career researchers and APECS activities (e.g. time commitment, length of service, personal motivation)
      • In which APECS activities has the mentor been participating in?
      • Examples of how the nominee helped your activities / projects / committees / APECS as a whole
      • What has been particular/original in the nominee’s support/mentoring?
      • Examples of how the mentoring impacted you or other early career researchers that worked with the nominee.
      • Any other relevant info about why the nominee should be awarded the APECS Mentor Award.
    • Minimum of two individual support letter from another member or colleague who have also benefitted from the support of the nominee. The letters can also be written by other members of e.g. your National Committee.

• Review

  All nominations under consideration will be reviewed by the Award Committee.

• Criteria

  Each of the below categories will be ranked for each candidate on the base of information included in application package and letters of support (see: section 3). In each category a mentor acquires between 0 and 10. The maximum total number of points is 80 (8 categories).

  Categories:
  1. Demonstrated commitment to early-career scientists (i.e., time commitment, length of service, personal motivation, professional development)
  2. Participation within APECS activities (i.e., participated via Mentor panels, workshops, webinars, or through the mentor database etc.).
  3. Meaningful engagement with the early career researchers to shape the future of polar research
  4. Originality of support/mentoring
  5. Impact of the support/mentoring
  6. Variety of mentees the mentor has supported
  7. Variety of mentoring opportunities provided (field work, conferences, meetings, leadership, community interactions)
  8. Building connections among early career polar researchers

• Decision

  To fully recognise involvement of mentors in APECS activities, each year 2 awards will be given out.

Each year the Award Committee will be made up of early-career scientists from the APESC Council and Executive Committee appointed in October. The APECS Executive Director will support the committee as a non-voting ex-officio.

Award Committee (2017-2018):

• José Queirós, University of Coimbra, Portugal (Chair)
• Julie Bull, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health / University of New Brunswick / University of Toronto, Canada
• Natalie Freeman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, United States
• Laura Hobbs, University of Strathclyde / Scottish Association for Marine Science, United Kingdom
• Nadya Yanakieva, Bulgarian Antarctic Institute, Bulgaria
• Gabriela Roldan, Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
• Alex Thornton, ARCUS, United States
• Gerlis Fugmann, APECS / Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Germany (ex-officio)

If you have any questions regarding this award please do not hesitate to contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.