The Foundation
The International Polar Foundation communicates and educates on polar science and polar research as a way to understand key environmental and climate mechanisms. The IPF also promotes innovative and multifaceted responses to the complex challenges raised by the need for action on sustainable development.
Activities
The IPF develops its projects within a context of sustainable development, following its three-fold mission of information, education and demonstration to the wider public.
- Inform the wider public on the importance of polar research in understanding how the Earth's climate functions, and disseminate the results of research on the Polar Regions and on climate change.
- Educate the wider public by offering new tools and resources that will allow the educational community to efficiently communicate complex ideas to the younger generations.
- Demonstrate that action can be taken today in order to address the causes and adapt our lifestyles in the face of current climate change. To this end, the IPF realizes and offers its support to exemplary sustainable development initiatives.
Antarctic Operations
The International Polar Foundation is the mandated Antarctic Operator for the Belgian Polar Secretariat. As such, the IPF is in charge of all operations taking place at the Princess Elisabeth Station.
A Public Utility Foundation
Co-founded by Belgian explorer and civil engineer Alain Hubert, and Professors emeriti André Berger, climatologist at the Université Catholique de Louvain, and Hugo Decleir, glaciologist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the International Polar Foundation (IPF) was established as a charitable non-profit organisation in 2002. The IPF is a private foundation of public utility, set up under Royal Statute.
Private participation remains the Foundation's main source of revenue. While patron companies support the Foundation's general mission, sponsoring companies choose to contribute to specific IPF projects. Public donations are granted to some of the IPF's educational projects of public interest.
International Presence
The IPF's headquarters are situated in Brussels, Belgium, at the crossroads of European Union institutions. The Foundation is also internationally represented by foreign offices in Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom and South Africa and local correspondants in the Netherlands, Russia, Spain.