Portuguese Polar Programme finances the trip of two members of the project research team with the participation of Lusófona University

The project ‘The coordination of team boundaries as a process promoting sustainable innovation in Antarctica’ has been accepted into the Portuguese Polar Programme.

This research project will be a collaboration between Lusófona University (Portugal), represented by Professor Pedro Quinteiro-Lopes, the University of Zurich (Switzerland), the University of Central Florida (USA) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil).

INOVA will understand how Antarctica teams can optimise boundary-spanning coordination to drive sustainable innovation, i.e., how collaboration strategies beyond the team, research station, and polar program boundaries can help address global sustainability challenges in Antarctica. The project contributes to the knowledge of extreme teams in such unique environments, thus looking at the interplay between boundary-spanning coordination and innovation in extreme environments for the first time. We adopt a qualitative case study approach, combining semi-structured interviews and structured field observations to develop a multiple embedded case study. The target samples are science teams at King George Island. The research team aims to accompany these teams on their daily activities to clearly describe the behaviours adopted by Antarctica teams that enable effective collaboration while balancing personal safety and collective priorities for ecological, social, and economic sustainability.

Researchers Monika Maślikowska and Andres Käosaar will take part in an expedition to King George's Island in early 2025 to carry out fieldwork.