LICHEN focuses on the languages and cultures of the northern circumpolar region. Faced with minority languages, governments have pursued policies of assimilation. This has applied to indigenous languages in Canada, to Gaelic and Scots in Scotland, and to Finnic minority languages in the Circumpolar region. The aim of the project is to create an electronic framework for the collection, management, online display, and exploitation of existing corpora of the languages of the circumpolar regions, which is also applicable to other corpora that represent regional, social and other varieties of languages.

The Network for ARCtic Climate and Biological DIVersity Studies (ARCDIV) is a multidisciplinary international research initiative. The project explores the diversity of ecosystem on Arctic archipelago Svalbard, central part of Isfjorden, Billefjorden and Petuniabukta, by integrating existing and new intensive measurements of key biological and physical variables and processes.

UCAA (Upper-ocean characteristics between Africa and Antarctica) During the 26th Indian Antarctic Expedition (IAE), data collection campaign for the above project was launched. Surface meteorological parameters from ship's AWS and density data using XCTD for the upper 1000m of the water column were collected along the ship route: Mauritius-Durban-India Bay (onward journey) and India Bay- Prydz Bay- Mauritius (return journey) on board Emerald Sea. These data are being processed and results are planned to be published by end of 2007.

Origin, evolution and setting of the Gamburtsev subglacial highlands
Discovered during International Geophysical Year 1957-1958, Antarctica’s Gamburtsev Mountains extend for more than 1,200 km and rise to heights of over 3,000 m. These mountains, however, have never been seen by humans because they are covered by ice up to 600 m thick. Using aircraft and field expeditions, this ambitious project will collect major new data sets – including offshore marine, gravity, magnetics, ice radar and a wealth of geological observations – to produce a four-dimensional history of the evolution of the Gamburtsev mountains. As well as recovering samples from this last great unknown region of Antarctica, the project will shed new light on the origins of the Antarctic ice sheet and its role in future climate change.

Concordia Station and the surrounding facilities have been conceived to be a long term support to valuable international scientific programmes. In Antarctica, most of the scientific activity is confined to coastal areas; so, the geographical location of Concordia is a unique vantage to provide new data in the global network for many sciences (geomagnetism, seismology, atmospheric sciences and to increase the accuracy of several models in climatology and atmosphere chemistry. These data, combined with the paleoclimatic records obtained from the ice cores, will improve our knowledge of the Antarctic environment, its changes during the last million years, and its links and interaction with the rest of the planet. In addition, the exceptional quality of the site for astronomy allows developing programmes cheaper than from satellites or orbital stations. So, Concordia station will offer to the international scientific communities the possibility to develop sound researches in one of the most unknown region in the world, region which plays a significant role at the global level, namely in term of climatic processes.

DAMOCLES (Developing Arctic Modeling and Observing Capabilities for Long-term Environmental Studies) is an integrated ice-atmosphere-ocean monitoring and forecasting system designed for observing, understanding and quantifying climate changes in the Arctic. DAMOCLES is specifically concerned with the potential for a significantly reduced sea ice cover, and the impacts this might have on the environment and on human activities, both regionally and globally.

We know that the Arctic exerts a critical influence on the Earth's climate and has done so for millions of years. Locked in Arctic ice and sediments are vital records of what the Earth's environment was like in the past. To more accurately predict the future of the Earth's climate, we need to know more about the extremes. Finding out how hot and how cold the Earth was in the past, and how much, as well as how little of it was covered by ice are key questions that APEX hopes to help answer.