Polar Research in public discourse : setting the stage

Polar Research gained bigger than ever extent and support, both on the state-political and the wide public level. We want to start the discussion on how the public concern is formed, and what are the inspirations that drive researchers to choose this type of career. It seems that in the non-Arctic country like Poland the sentiment, associated with the historical polar events together with widely accessible and attractive documentary films, was essential in shaping the societal support for spending public money on polar studies.