The international Antarctic Treaty, successfully negotiated and signed in 1959, entered into force after ratification by the 12 original signatory countries in 1961. Under the Antarctic Treaty, research activities are now carried out in Antarctica by 54 countries. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty, a major international radio activity was launched in the second half of 2021 with which an important contribution to communication to the public was made.

On the occasion of Polar Week in March 2021 and with the motto let’s talk fieldwork, APECS Germany hosted an online polar fieldwork panel discussion. Joined by a group of six early-career polar scientists and an audience of over 140 participants, the event provided an informal environment for debating experiences, issues and ideas. This contribution summarizes the event, sharing practical knowledge about polar fieldwork and fieldwork opportunities for early-career scientists.

During the First International Polar Year (1882–1883) Germany set up a meteorological and magnetic station at South Georgia in the South Atlantic, where the transit of Venus in front of the Sun on 6 December 1882 could also be observed. After the return of the expedition the station decayed over the decades. Today only some relics remain. The paper wants to encourage an archeological investigation to learn more about the social life of the station members.

This short contribution provides describes the increased interest in the polar research within the German-speaking political science community and suggests an agenda for cross-disciplinary collaboration between natural and social sciences.

The paper describes the development of a virtual reality environment of the British mining settlement Advent City on Svalbard based on historical and archaeological sources. In our paper we will discuss in detail the genesis of the 3D model as well as the virtual reality environment and afterwards discuss the benefit of such a digital world for disseminating the results of polar archaeological research to students and teachers at schools and universities and the interested public.

For over 45 years, teams composed of scientists, technicians, doctors, and cooks have been wintering in Antarctica in the service of German Antarctic research. They thus form a cornerstone of long-term scientific measurements in this remote and unique place with regard to future scientific investigations. In this article, we highlight the research being conducted at the permanently crewed Neumayer Station III and its predecessors and the role of the overwinterers in this research endeavour.

To facilitate the search for funding within Germany and internationally, APECS Germany has started to host a list of grant, fellowship and other funding opportunities at https://apecs-germany.de/funding/. In our article, we present our new website while describing the different stages of the quest to find funding and to highlight best practices for, for example, writing grant proposals.