COMNAP Early-Career Award
The annual COMNAP Early-Career Award (also know as COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship) is an investment in the professional development of talented early-career persons. The scheme, established in 2011, enables award recipients to work with a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating partnerships that last for many years and over many Antarctic field seasons. By supporting their professional development with a host institute, the award also strengthens international capacity and cooperation.
The COMNAP early-career award and the iaato Antarctic fellowship 2025 applications are now open
In 2025, COMNAP and IAATO will each offer awards with funding of up to USD $15,000.
The deadline for the COMNAP Early-Career Award and the IAATO Fellowship applications is 1 June 2025.
To Apply for the COMNAP Early-Career Award:
Check eligibility requirements and download an application form and letters of reference templates (file 1). Ask your home institute to complete a letter of reference, and discuss with your proposed host institute your proposal and their ability to support your project at their facilities. Include both letters of reference with your application. Your proposed project must align with the priority projects or topics for the application year. The priority project list for 2025 is available as file 2. Prepare your application and when your application is ready for submission, upload the application along with supporting documentation to the COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship application on-line submission site.
COMNAP Early-Career Award Application Pack (file 1)
COMNAP Early-Career Award Priority Projects (file 2)
To Apply for the IAATO Antarctic Fellowship:
IAATO, since 2019, has joined COMNAP, SCAR and CCAMLR to support early-career professionals by way of providing funding for the IAATO Antarctic Fellowship. Check eligibility requirements and download an application form and letters of reference templates (file 3 below). Please see IAATO website for full details. Prepare your application and when your application is ready for submission, upload the application along with supporting documentation to the IAATO Antarctic Fellowship application on-line submission site.
IAATO Fellowship Application Pack (file 3)
Evaluation of COMNAP early-career award and IAATO Antarctic Fellowship applications received:
For the COMNAP applications, a review panel chaired by a representative of the COMNAP Executive Committee, and including expertise in the range of projects proposed, will evaluate all COMNAP proposals on the basis of the excellence of the proposed project. This evaluation will also take into consideration factors such as:
• its relevance to the list of proposed project themes;
• its achievability within the time frame allotted;
• the extent to which links have already been established with the proposed host institution;
• the extent to which it will strengthen the Antarctic science support capacity of the nations involved;
• its "fit" with COMNAP's goals and objectives.
For the IAATO applications, the IAATO Executive Committee plus one COMNAP EXCOM Member will evaluate all applications received before the deadline and will rank on the basis of excellence and fit to IAATO's overarching purpose, and must reflect the objectives of IAATO and add to our understanding of human presence in the Antarctic.
Completion of COMNAP early-career award and IAATO Antarctic Fellowship
At the end of each award, each candidate must provide a report, covering the accomplishments and a budgetary report, to be published on the COMNAP and IAATO website. The COMNAP Early-Career Award and IAATO Antarctic Fellowship scheme should be acknowledged in any resulting publications.
Other Antarctic Opportunities
CCAMLR’s Scientific Scholarship Scheme will be open for applications later this year, assisting early-career scientists to participate in the work of the CCAMLR Scientific Committee and its working groups over two years. SCAR’s Antarctic Fellowship Programme will also be seeking applications in 2025. For details visit the CCAMLR and SCAR websites.
The COMNAP Early-Career Awards Recipients 2011-2024
The COMNAP Early-Career Awards (also know as COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship) was offered for the first time in 2011. It is designed to encourage the active involvement of early-career Antarctic persons and to strengthen international capacity and cooperation in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty. It is intended to allow people from a COMNAP Member National Antarctic Program country to undertake short-term visits to major international laboratories, field facilities, and/or home institutions in or operated by other COMNAP Member National Antarctic Programs (for a list of members, please visit the “Our Members” page of the COMNAP website). The awardee’s project should contribute to the objectives of the home or host National Antarctic Program’s objectives.
The following were awarded COMNAP Early-Career Awards and their reports are available below.
2011-2012 Amelia Marks “Characterisation of bidirectional reflectance of Antarctic surface”, Royal Hollaway, United Kingdom, to ENEA/PNRA Italy
2012-2013 Ursula Rack “Reconstructing historic Antarctic climate data”, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, to Scott Polar Research Institute, United Kingdom
2012-2013 Jenson George (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Influence of small scale mixing on the primary productivity and water mass formation in the Southern Ocean” NCAOR, India, to GEOMAR, Germany
2013-2014 Charlotte Havermans “The impact of environmental changes on a key component of the Southern Ocean”, Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium, to Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Germany
2013-2014 Luis Rodriguez Pertierra (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Niche modelling as a tool for invasive risk assessment of vascular plants in terrestrial Antarctica”, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain to Australian Antarctic Division, Australia
2014-2015 Sandra Potter “Quantifying factors limiting implementation of Annex III of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty”, University of Tasmania, Australia, to Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) / Russian Antarctic Expedition (RAE), Russia
2014-2015 Keith Soal “Characterisation of Ice-Structure and Fluid-Structure Interactions on Polar Vessels using Operational Modal Analysis”, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, to Germany and Finland
2015-2016 Alejandro Velasco Castrillon “100 years on: a re-evaluation of the first discovery of limno-terrestrial microfauna of the McMurdo Sound region”, University of Adelaide/South Australia Museum, Australia to McMurdo Sound, Antarctica
2015-2016 Inka Koch (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship), “Detecting marine ice internal layers and thickness in an Antarctic ice shelf with airborne ice penetrating radar”, University of Otago, New Zealand, to University of Texas, USA
2016-2017 Ronja Reese “Importance of Ice Buttressing in Antarctica”, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), United Kingdom
2016-2017 Blanca Figuerola “Vulnerability of Antarctic bryozoan communities to environmental change”, University of Barcelona, Spain, to the Australian Antarctic Division, Australia
2016-2017 Christopher Horvat (Awarded a joint SCAR/COMNAP Fellowship) “Modelling the Antarctic Sea Ice Floe Size Distribution”, Harvard University, USA, to the National Institute of Water and Atmosphere, New Zealand
2017-2018 Maria Gabriela Roldan “Inviting Antarctica into your home: an evaluation of public engagement with Antarctic science, science support, policy and technology”, Gateway Antarctica, New Zealand, to the Institute Antartico Chileno (INACH), Chile
2018-2019 Mikolaj Dziurzynski “Omics-based modelling of metabolic processes of Antarctic bacterium, Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis TACI25, in response to selected heavy metals”, University of Warsaw, Poland, to the University of Florence, Italy
2019-2020 Miguel González Pleiter (Awarded a joint IAATO/COMNAP Fellowship) “Understanding the consequences of microplastics introduction in the Antarctic environment: the Plastisphere Resistome”, University of Alcala, Spain, to the University of the Republic, Uruguay
2019-2020 Cinthya Elizabeth Bello Chirinos “Surface velocity and facies classification of Znosko glacier, King George Island, Antarctica, using SAR satellite data time series”, National Agrarian University of Molina, Peru, to the Institute of Oceanography Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil
2020-2021 Paola Barros Delben “Health and Safety Risk Management in Isolation, Confinement, and Extreme Contexts”, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil, to the Instituto Universitário de Ciências Psicológicas, Sociais e da Vida, Lisboa, Portugal
2020-2021 Renan Lima “Coping with a fast-changing environment: an isotopic insight on the foraging ecology of pack-ice seals from the Antarctic Peninsula”, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Brazil, to the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, United States of America
2021-2022 Aanchal Jain “Policy analysis to curb plastic pollution in Antarctic environment”, Universidad Mayor, Chile to the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Cambridge, United Kingdom
2021-2022 Antonio Polo Sánchez (Awarded a joint IAATO/COMNAP Fellowship) “Constraining the eruptive mechanisms of Three Sisters, Orca and Deception Island volcanoes (Bransfield Strait, Antarctica) through Noble Gases isotopic ratios. Implications for Geochemical Monitoring (BRANSVOLC)”, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain, to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), Palermo, Italy
2022-2023 Rafael Gonzales-Serrano “Viral metagenomics of extant and ancient viruses from Antarctic soils”, Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa (CBMSO), Madrid, Spain, to the University of Waikato, New Zealand
2023-2024 María Cristina Casero Chamorro “Understanding viral abundance and distribution from airborne samples in and around Johan Gregor Mendel Base, northern James Ross Island, Antarctica“, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain, to the Czech Antarctic Research Program
2023-2024 Clara Álvarez Hernández “Exploring plastic waste removal options to minimize local introduction of micro-plastics in the Antarctic environment“, Spain to British Antarctic Survey, United Kingdom
In 2016, at the SCAR Open Science Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, SCAR & COMNAP convened a Mini-Symposium on the fellowship programmes.
You can find the presentation by the SCAR Vice Chair CBET Professor Karen Lochte “What have we learned from the Fellowship Programme” here.
Other Opportunities
University of Canterbury Summer Scholarship Scheme
Each Austral summer, the University of Canterbury which hosts the COMNAP Secretariat in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers senior students an opportunity to work on a summer project. COMNAP has participated in two such projects and reports from each one are below.
2010/11 Max Gallagher “Impacts of Tsunami on National Antarctic Program Operations and Personnel in Coastal Antarctica”
2013/14 Hanne Nielsen “From Shelter to Showpiece: The Evolution of Antarctic Station design”