Unlocking the SCAR archive: the sixty-year long consolidation of Antarctic governance through polar research.

There is an unprecedented and unique opportunity to shed light on SCAR's historical trajectory as an institution devoted to research coordination in the South Pole. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the international organization tasked with coordinating research in Antarctica and its Executive Committee has recently recognized the need for its archival documents to be made available to scholars. This is SCAR's veritable legacy of sixty years of research coordination at the bottom of the world. The examination of these papers would prove decisive in shedding new light on a number of crucial issues including: the governance challenges facing Antarctica in the past and today; the role of scientists - as experts and coordinators -- within its administration processes; the significance of the Antarctic regime in global governance; and the emergence of modern methods of global environmental monitoring which are instrumental in assessing climate change. Through an original partnership catering for blending different disciplines and methodologies, this project would comprehensively address these compelling issues.