News

This coming Saturday, 29 June 2019, 33 young scientists from around the globe will be celebrating their graduation at the Alfred Wegener Institute. Ten scholarship holders have come to the end of a 10-month programme, and 23 young people have completed an exciting month-long expedition.

After half a year in the Southern Hemisphere, the research icebreaker Polarstern will soon return to her homeport, Bremerhaven. Following a season of work focusing on sea ice, the icebreaker will now be prepared for her next challenge: the greatest Arctic research expedition of all time, which will begin this September.

Arranging work and family life is a high priority at all locations of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research. This is also proven by the repeated awarding of the berufundfamilie Service GmbH audit certificate, which has now been presented for the fifth time in a row to Winfried Hebold-Heitz and Ines Foellscher from the family office.
 

Fascinating insights and a friendly exchange: Geophysicist and astronaut Alexander Gerst recently paid a visit to his alma mater, the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). Before an audience of ca. 200 members of staff, he gave an in-house talk on his work as ‘astro-Alex’ and exchanged ideas with the researchers in attendance.

Together with a group of climate experts, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Iceland from 12 to 14 June. Prof Antje Boetius, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), accompanied the President at his request, in order to discuss global climate change and Germany’s contribution to climate protection.

AWI Vice Director Karen Wiltshire supports a UNESCO action on World Oceans Day 2019 with a video clip. Watch the video here.

Research Software Engineers (RSEs) - is how people who develop research software call themselves independent of their job title and degree. In the science park Albert Einstein in Potsdam now the first conference in Germany took place on the subject of research software. The Potsdam Research Centre of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) organized the conference together with the Gesellschaft für Informatik eV (GI) - Fachbereich Softwaretechnik (SWT), the de-RSE eV - Gesellschaft für Forschungssoftware , the…

In May 2019, the Chair of the Arctic Council was transferred from Finland to Iceland. To inform the German Arctic interested parties, the Arctic Office of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, has organized a symposium with the Finnish and Icelandic embassies and the Foreign Office.

New types, processes and products that contribute to increasing production and improving sustainability in aquaculture value chains in the Atlantic: their introduction is the goal of the EU-funded project "AquaVitae".

On 1 June 2019 the European Beyond EPICA Oldest Ice Core project started with the aim of drilling for and recovering ice from up to 1.5 Million years ago in Antarctica. The previous EPICA project recovered ice from 800,000 years ago. Now scientists want to go BEYOND that.