41 participants, predominantly PhD students and postdocs, recently attended a 5-day international training school on glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). The training school was hosted at Lantmäteriet – the Swedish Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authority, which is located in Gävle, Sweden. The schedule consisted of 4 days of lectures and a full-day field trip to visit local sites where evidence of past ice sheet and sea-level change is preserved.

Lectures covered material including: the history and theory of GIA, the geodetic, geological, and geophysical evidence used to constrain GIA-related processes, applications of GIA, and recent developments in the field. The participants were also able to gain experience in running GIA and ice sheet models during computer practical sessions.

All of the lectures were broadcast online in real-time; our maximum number of ‘virtual participants’ listening at any one time was over 60 and we have already clocked up over 500 individual views of the online content. Recordings of the lectures are available to view on the training school website (http://polenet.org/2019-glacial-isostatic-adjustment-gia-training-school).

28 countries (6 continents), were represented across the 41 participants and 16 lecturers. In a feedback questionnaire, participants specifically noted the benefit of engaging and networking with researchers from such a wide range of scientific and cultural backgrounds.

We are incredibly grateful for the funding that we received from: National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Antarctica Network (ANET) component of the Polar Earth Observing Network (POLENET) project; the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) through the Solid Earth Response and influence on Cryospheric Evolution (SERCE) program; the European Geosciences Union (EGU); the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences (IACS); and DTU Space. This funding enabled us to cover a significant proportion of the travel, accommodation, and subsistence expenses of the participants; several participants have noted that they could not have attended without this support.

Finally, we are grateful to all the lecturers, field trip leaders, and training school organisers for helping us to achieve our goal of educating and inspiring a new generation of GIA researchers!