International Polar Week March 2021: Photo, Poetry and Essay Competition

For this March Polar Week we would like to share your polar perspectives through photos, poetry and short essays!

If you are interested in participating in the competition, please fill out the Submission Form by March 11th, 23:59 GMT. 

Following you can find more information on the competition categories:

• Polar Photo Competition

  Share your best photos of you doing work related to the polar regions, this could be a landscape photo, an in-the-office-photo, analyzing polar data, presenting polar data, anything related to polar! File size is limited to 10MB, please read the rules and regulations for permissions to share your photo.

• Polar Poetry Competition

  We are looking to showcase artistic, beautiful poems about the Arctic, Antarctic, and wider cryosphere – no matter what language or form they are in, (Please provide an English translation along with your work, or let us know if you are happy for APECS to translate it into English.) Share your own stories, photos and experiences through our submission competition, and share on social media using the hashtag: #PolarPoetry suggested submission lengths can be 12 - 40 lines.

• Polar Essay Competition

  We are looking to showcase artistic, beautiful essays about the Arctic, Antarctic, and wider cryosphere – no matter what language or form they are in (Please provide an English translation along with your work, or let us know if you are happy for APECS to translate it into English.) This challenge is to write about the theme “CHANGE” - it can be your most memorable fieldwork experience or that one niche scientific phenomenon that gets your heart racing. Write a funny piece, or an ode to your favorite fjord or an opinion essay on the Arctic Council. This challenge word limit will be 100 - 1000: You can write a short flash piece (~100) or a longer reflection (1000 max).

Please forward this to any others who you think have an interesting perspective to share and may be willing to participate. All submitted content will be featured on the APECS website during the March Polar Week (14-20 March). Public voting will also occur during Polar Week. Prizes will be awarded to first, second and third places for each category at the end of the Polar Week!

Please read the rules and regulations below before submitting! 


Rules and Regulations:

• 1. ELIGIBILITY

  1. The competition is open only to APECS members. If you are not a member yet, please join before submitting your photo, poetry or essay. Joining APECS is free, and you will get the benefits of being part of an organization made up of passionate polar early career scientists and professionals! Click here to join: http://apecs.is/get-involved/join-apecs.
  2. Images/poems/essays that have won prizes in prior APECS competitions or have been used for commercial purposes will not be eligible.
  3. If you have won a prize in an APECS photo or art competition in the last 2 years, you are not eligible to submit a photo/poem/essay.
  4. Members of the Polar Week March 2021 organizing committee are not eligible to participate. 

• 2. SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES

  1. Images/Poems/Essays must be submitted via the competition Submission form. The filename of your attached submission shall be named “Your name_PolarWeekMarch2021_Category” (e.g. FridtjofNansen_PolarWeekMarch2021_poetry)
  2. Indicate if you are interested in your image/poem/essay being featured on our APECS Instagram account (@apecs.polar) or Twitter account (@Polar_Resaerch) or Facebook account (@APECS4u). Include your handle, if you like.
  3. Information entered into the submission form has to include: Name, affiliation and email address of the person entering the contest. If you're submitting a photo, please include a short description about the image (150 characters maximum).
  4. Please give information if we are allowed to use the photo/poem/essay on the APECS website and/or APECS communication channels and/or for non-commercial promotional materials (e.g. flyers, posters) after the competition. 
  5. Images/poems/essays have to be in JPEG format (preferably with resolution of more than 300 dpi) and without any watermarks.
  6. Each participant can submit 1 entry per category. 

  The submission deadline is the 11th March 2021 at 23:59 GMT.

• 3. COPYRIGHTS/INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

  1. Each image/poem/essay submitted must be original and unpublished for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
  2. The participant shall retain the copyright to the image/poem/essay entered for the competition, however grants APECS unrestricted rights to use and edit submitted materials as needed for organizational purposes with or without explicit attribution.
  3. By submitting an image/poem/essay for the competition, the participant will be regarded as having accepted and agreed to be bound by the rules and regulations of the competition and granted the organizer, APECS, royalty-free permissions to use the picture/poem/essay for promotional, commercial, or educational purposes (e.g. website, flyers, postcards). APECS will credit the creator for any use of the pictures/poems/essays.
  4. Any people featured in the image must accept and agree with the rules and regulations of this competition. It is the entire and sole responsibility of the participants in the competition to inform and to obtain the appropriate legal permissions of all the people featured in the submitted images. Any depiction of minors (persons under the age of 18) that are identifiable in the photo must include explicit, written parental consent. Entries will be asked to provide proof of these permissions and will be disqualified if these permissions are not secured.
  5. The participant further gives his consent that his/her personal data included in the submission will be used for the aforementioned purposes.

• 4. JUDGING AND RESULTS

  1. The images/poems/essays will be uploaded by the organizers and shared on the Polar Week website. During polar week the public can vote through a voting poll March 15 - 20th.
  2. The image/essay/poem with the most votes will be determined the winner, with three winners from each category.
  3. Results of the competition will be posted on the APECS website and social media, and the winners will also be notified via email at the end of the Polar Week (March 22, 2021).

• 5. PRIZES

  1. APECS will award a prize to the winners (first, second, third place) in each category.
  2. 1st winners will be awarded prizes, including INTERACT Fieldwork planning handbook and a monetary award of €100 (one hundrend) that can be only used towards attending a polar- or alpine-related conference or workshop (travel support, registration fee). Winners can claim their prize within 2 years from the day the grant is awarded. The 2nd- and 3rd-place winners will receive APECS give-aways.
  3. Please note that the funds can be granted only to the APECS members. If you are not a member and want to be eligible for a funding award, we encourage you to join our community. Joining APECS is free, and you will get the benefits of being part of an organization made up of passionate polar early career scientists and professionals! Click here to join: http://apecs.is/get-involved/join-apecs.
  4. Winners will be contacted by the APECS International Directorate Office with instructions for claiming the prize.