Extreme weather, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, and devastating events such as droughts, floods, and wildfires are becoming ever more prevalent and severe across the globe. At the same time, ongoing processes of ocean warming, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and sea-ice change are negatively impacting ecosystems, economies, the rights, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, and human wellbeing around the world. Many of these changes are taking shape faster than predicted. As the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report points out, several of the more serious global consequences are linked to unprecedented changes in the Arctic and Antarctic (‘polar regions’). The urgency of understanding the consequences of such rapid changes in the polar regions for global climate, biodiversity, and human societies has never been greater. The transformations in the polar regions (particularly the Arctic), also highlight a need to articulate and elevate the critical status, rights and roles of Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems with respect to understanding, addressing and adapting to these changes. Global transdisciplinary coordination focused on the polar regions is therefore essential to achieving the major knowledge breakthroughs that are required to inform and develop effective international, regional, national, and local strategies to mitigate and adapt to the recent unprecedented levels of global change. 

In this context, there is an urgent need to organise a 5th International Polar Year (IPY) (“IPY-5”) in 2032-33. 

The 5th IPY (2032-33) will build on four groundbreaking IPYs convened between 1881 and 2009 (IPY-1: 1882-1883; IPY 2: 1932-1933; IPY 3 / IGY: 1957-1958; IPY 4: 2007-2008). Together with millennia of Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge production, the IPYs form a long chain of coordinated polar research and credible scientific evidence on socio-ecological changes in the polar regions. This record of biophysical and social changes and our understanding of their impacts to the polar systems themselves (particularly for Indigenous communities, residents and human visitors), offers a unique opportunity to more deeply understand global processes, make informed decisions and act accordingly.

Encompassing planning, project, and legacy phases implemented over a span of ten years, IPY-5 is an opportunity for many countries, institutions, and networks to coordinate their research, observations, protocols, and expeditions in the polar regions. It provides the necessary opportunities for global and transdisciplinary coordinated research action among polar researchers, knowledge holders, rights holders, educators, and other stakeholders to produce urgently needed actionable information that will support evidence- and human rights- based solutions to local and global challenges. Meaningful impact is supported by an inclusive and coordinated approach across different scientific disciplines, programmes, and knowledge systems including through co-production and co-creation of knowledge as well as education and community/citizen science approaches. IPY-5 also supports progress towards achieving implementation of international treaties, agreements, and other large-scale international processes including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the 2023 Helsinki Declaration on Climate Change and Antarctica adopted by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting, and the 4th International Conference on Arctic Research Planning Process (ICARP IV), as well as several relevant UN Decades. 

IPY-5 will leverage these, and other initiatives, which together highlight the need for greater international coordination to provide the credible scientific evidence needed for effective decision-making on urgent local to global issues.  

• Provide a unique and essential opportunity for strengthened international cooperation and partnership to advance polar research and knowledge production. 

• Allow researchers and knowledge holders to build on the outcomes of previous IPYs, including by: expanding integrated and coordinated observations of accelerating changes; supporting modelling efforts; deepening understanding through transdisciplinary syntheses studies; and expanding the long-term monitoring of current conditions required to understand deeply integrated Earth systems and inform predictions of future impacts of climate and environmental changes.

• Build specifically on the methodological, technological, educational, and epistemological advancements of the 4th IPY, including major shifts toward working across knowledge systems and transdisciplinary research with specific emphasis on equitable and ethical engagement with Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems.

• Support, connect and extend networks of Indigenous Peoples, academics, local leaders, and early career and community researchers to understand the human and environmental links, impacts and feedbacks with the polar regions and beyond.

• Provide a comprehensive assessment of the operation and evolution of polar ecosystems enabling a more holistic understanding of the Earth’s interconnected living systems and their trajectories in a changing climate.

• Document, understand, and amplify experiences and knowledge held by Indigenous Peoples and the societies in the Arctic in the context of rapidly changing interconnected natural and human systems. 

• Produce education and outreach opportunities to engage the wider community with open and accessible communication strategies, platforms and co-developed content, including by identifying new ways to communicate research and engage communities worldwide to seek solutions and act. 

• Support education, recruitment, and capacity-building for the new generation of experts needed to continue Arctic and Antarctic changes as well as their global implications.

• Inform and support local to global evidence-based mitigation and adaptation solutions and progress towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including by supporting enhanced science- and knowledge policy interfacing.

The 5th IPY will be guided by a broad set of principles, including: 

• Fostering the widest possible international collaboration to produce knowledge for action with direct societal relevance.

• Committing to inclusive and diverse practices, including the implementation of equitable and ethical standards for engagement and cooperation with Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems.

• Striving for holistic, systemic, transdisciplinary research approaches that minimise environmental footprints. This includes co-design of research programs and co-production of knowledge across different knowledge systems, as well as ensuring that funding programs are directly supporting and financing Indigenous People´s comprehensive participation for the benefit of all parties.

• Ensuring balanced involvement and information flow, identification of areas of common interest, and effective knowledge exchange across Arctic and Antarctic polar research communities and networks.

• Encouraging  open science and open data, according to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) data principles. 

• Encouraging effective and inclusive science communication, polar education, and public engagement, both in the polar regions and globally.

• Engaging in capacity building and sharing for early-career scientists, Indigenous Peoples and those from historically under-represented groups across the polar regions and polar research disciplines.

The 5th IPY is envisioned as a coordinated international, multi-year activity with three distinct phases: 

1. Planning phase (2021-25): Conceptual discussions among several polar research and Indigenous Peoples’ Organisations started in 2021. Between 2023-25, a period of broad consultation is being carried out to understand the needs of the relevant stakeholders, including national and international funding bodies to:

   • Refine planning documents

   • Co-develop timelines, structures, priorities, visions and ambitions

   • Establish processes to support IPY-5 initiatives

2. Project phase (2026-33): The IPY-5 project phase will include the initiation and implementation of IPY initiatives culminating in 2032-33 in a two-year period of intensive polar fieldwork and analysis, modelling efforts and process understanding studies, as well as education and outreach activities. The project phase will connect communities through key polar research initiatives and events including a joint IASC-SCAR Conference 2030, and will engage closely with related regional and global efforts such as the Fourth International Conference on Arctic Research Planning process (ICARP IV), the Antarctic InSync initiative, and relevant UN Decades.

3. Legacy phase (2034+): In the years following the 5th IPY, the data collected will continue to be fully utilised and archived. This will involve analysis and synthesis activities, with a focus on knowledge transfer, reporting, and establishment of supporting frameworks for legacy outcomes.  In addition, an evaluation of the impact of the 5th IPY will be undertaken at the start of the legacy phase.