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Welcome to SPRI

Welcome to the website of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI). The Institute is a well-known and long-established centre for research into both polar regions. It is part of the University of Cambridge and is a sub-department of the Department of Geography.

We have several research groups investigating a range of issues in both the environmental sciences and social sciences of relevance to the Arctic and Antarctica. Our polar library, which includes the Shackleton Memorial Library, has comprehensive holdings of scholarly books and journals on polar research, with exceptional archival collections from the exploration of the Antarctic and Arctic. We also have extensive online resources, including bibliographic and other information.

Around 60 academic, library and support staff, together with postgraduate students, associates and fellows attached to our research programmes, are working in the Institute, providing a strong core of intellectual activity focused on the Arctic and Antarctic and their adjacent seas.

We offer two Graduate Degree courses; a one-year Master's Degree (M.Phil.) course in Polar Studies, and a three-year Doctoral Degree course, leading to a Ph.D. degree. Both courses are closely tied to the research activities of the Institute.

	Snow Lab Snow Lab is a scientific project to study snow, which needs lots of volunteers to help take measurements. It is being run by Dr Gareth Rees, who is based at the Scott Polar Research Institute. At present, Snow Lab is only looking for volunteers from schools in Cambridgeshire although in future we hope to run it for the whole of the UK. So if you are at a school in Cambridgeshire, and there's snow on the ground (or might be), and you think you might like to get involved, please have a look at the Snow Lab website.
	Museum opening hours The Museum is usually open 10am to 4pm, Tuesday to Saturday, except Bank Holiday weekends and some other public holidays. Please see the Museum webpages for further details.
	Freeze Frame is a remarkable resource enabling you to explore over 20,000 photographs from 1845-1960, representing some of the most important visual resources for research into British and international polar exploration. Go to the Freeze Frame website

The Institute also hosts the Secretariats of the International Glaciological Society and the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.