Arctic Passion 2025 Symposium And General Assembly In Potsdam

by Sabrina Heerema, Josefine Lenz, Lisa Grosfeld, Nadine Hillenbrand, Michael Karcher | Published: 16-Oct-25 | Last updated: 16-Oct-25 | Tags : Arctic Meeting partners | category: NEWS

It’s a wrap! Arctic PASSION gathered for a final meeting full of reflection, celebration, and inspiration - marking the culmination of four years of passionate and successful collaboration across the Arctic and beyond. Over100 people attended the 4-day event consisting of two days of an open final Symposium, followed by two days of an internal General Assembly of the project participants in the beautiful city of Potsdam, Germany. Participants represented the 35 partner institutions based in Canada, Norway, Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Greenland, Sweden, Korea, Japan, the UK, the USA, Switzerland and India. 

The Symposium held at the Science Campus Albert Einstein on the Telegrafenberg, consisted of presentations from Arctic PASSION experts and invited external experts, followed by panel discussions with the audience on topics that were key to Arctic PASSION and will remain important themes for the coming years: 

  • Arctic Observations and Arctic Knowledge 
  • Bringing the Arctic Data System to Action 
  • Societal needs, benefits and wellbeing 
  • Coordination and Governance of an Arctic Observing System 
  • Pan-Arctic observing for the next decade - national and international programmes

A full list of speakers and their topics can be found here. 

All Symposium sessions were live illustrated by Hasan Abbas (GRID-Arendal), for an impression on key messages and outputs see his recordings below. 


The Arctic PASSION Symposium sessions illustrated by Hasan Abbas.


Lauren Clavelle and Illaria Crotti gave presentations and participated in panel discussions at the Symposium. Photos: Olivia Rempel.
Panel discussions dove deep into the themes and provided important insights into the current and upcoming challenges but also pointed towards the next necessary steps for the Arctic observing community. They will serve as important feedback and reflection on creating a joint vision for an improved future Arctic Observing Network. A specific Early Career corner was set up by project and APECS Office members Lisa Grosfeld and Josefine Lenz to open space for exchange and networking, along with a job board. The Arctic Services created by the project were presented in an exhibition at the end of the first Symposium's Day. For its opening, clarinetist Lisa Mühlig offered a reflective and inspiring complement to the scientific discussions. Her improvisations and original work not only created a special atmosphere but also reminded us of wildfire, wind, fish, and permafrost. A poster session at the end of the second Day offered a platform for exchange and in-depth discussion on the symposium topics and presented further details on Arctic PASSION outcomes. A networking event with a concert by the KAMA Orchestra concluded the Symposium and “broke the ice” for the following General Assembly, which took place on the peninsula of Herrmannswerder, Potsdam.


Arctic PASSION 2025 Symposium participants. Photo: Olivia Rempel 

During the internal meeting of the General Assembly, discussions and planning ways forward were continued in the frame of Work Package sessions.  The latest project results were discussed (they are available here) among them the project’s eight new innovative, user-driven Arctic services and reports on our activities towards enhanced observations, better coordination of Arctic observations, a more useful data system, societal benefit analysis, and our actions towards policy and decision-making support.  Furthermore, four parallel workshop sessions on the topics of less common knowledge exchange and approaches of learning were offered: 

  • Indigenous Research, Ethics, and Protocol: A Brief Introduction, hosted by Lauren Clavelle 
  • An "Instrument" of Passion Sharing -Exploring Learning and Knowledge through Musical Improvisation, hosted by Lisa Mühlig 
  • Exploring Learning and Connection through Visual Communication, hosted by Hasan Abbas 
  • Sharing Your Story: How to better work with the media as a researcher, hosted by Olivia Rempel 

On the final day, APECS organized a Career Panel discussion with four panelists from different fields: Caroline Coch (project officer at INFRA as NGO), Arild Sundfjord (physical oceanographer at NPI), Adam Stepien (Arctic governance researcher at ULAP) and Anna Sinisalo (science communicator at GRID-Arendal). 


The Early Career Professionals who attended Arctic PASSION’s final General Assembly. Photo: Olivia Rempel. 

The meeting finished with a discussion about how to best use the final 3 months of the project to ensure its legacy, create impactful outreach and presences at upcoming conferences also beyond the project's end in December, and a meeting with our project Advisory Board providing feedback and advice for our final steps.  

We agreed that one of the most important and lasting impacts of our 4 ½ years of Arctic PASSION is having created a network of trust and collaboration.

This will be a pivotal foundation for the coming years, to make the Arctic Observing Network more useful, better integrated and more equitable. With this understanding we will finish the project at the end of the year with one crying eye and one laughing eye. 


Snowchange Cooperative’s Tero Mustonen presenting a book entitled “When Gwich’in and Skolt Sami Meet”, created by the Gwich’in Tribal Council, Skolt Sámi partners and Snowchange, supported by Arctic PASSION. Photo:  Olivia Rempel  


  

Hasan and Olivia leading communication capacity building workshops for project partners. Photos: Sabrina Heerema.  

Arctic PASSION 2025 General Assembly participants. Photo: Olivia Rempel. 


The Arctic PASSION Symposium and final General Assembly was organized by Josefine Lenz, Nadine Hillenbrand, Lena-Kaisa Viitanen, Lisa Grosfeld and Michael Karcher.