A story of penguins, floats and balloons in Antarctica Workshop to showcase Ukrainian Research (Deliverable D12.4)

On 11 September 2026, the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine (NASC), in partnership with the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), held the public event “A story of penguins, floats and balloons in Antarctica” at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. Organised as part of the OCEAN ICE project, the event presented NASC’s work in the Southern Ocean to a general audience through video presentations and a live discussion linking the audience with polar researchers at the Vernadsky base. The narrative of the event is based on the policy briefing, “How Antarctic Ice and Southern Ocean Changes Are Interconnected with Climate, Sea Level, and Biodiversity”, on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/22768461), whose main authors are Natalia Dikul, Evgen Dykyi, Anastasiia Chyhareva, Svitlana Krakovska and Olena Marushevska. This event summarised NASC’s findings and translated them into accessible material for public engagement, building visibility for Ukrainian polar science and strengthening NASC staff's dissemination and communication skills.