Türkiye's affairs with polar regions date back to the mapping of the South America coasts, which are the nearest territories to the Antarctic in the world map, by Piri Reis in the 16th century. In the course of history, scientific studies on polar regions continued actively under the flags of other countries and/or joint expeditions with other countries.
Under the auspices of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, with the support and financing of the Ministry of Industry and Technology and under the coordination of ITU PolReC; national scientific expeditions were conducted to the Antarctic in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Polar Research Institute (KARE) was established in 2019 within TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center to ensure the coordination and logistics of the future national polar expeditions.
Polar Research Institute (KARE) aims to provide support for R&D and scientific research studies that can be conducted in polar regions, to operate Türkiye’s polar research camp(s) and station(s), to plan and coordinate logistics, to facilitate communication among relevant organizations, to conduct bilateral international collaborations, to develop and implement the national polar strategy in cooperation with stakeholders, to raise awareness of polar regions at national scale, to materialize national and international scientific diplomacy on polar regions and to increase the competitive power of Türkiye in science by representing it in international arena.