During its formative months, I often faced the question whether this fourth IPY would include “kayaks” (my codeword for small, individual, and implicitly flexible and innovative research projects) or exclusively “icebreakers” (a codeword for large multi-investigator projects, by implication complex planned efforts, generally controlled by the established polar scientific order). The question of project scope arose in Arctic science meetings and penetrated, for a time, the public media. I maintained that innovation and creativity would occur throughout IPY, regardless of size of project or platform. As steward of the IPY International Office, I argued publicly for the widest inclusion of ideas and proposals, from groups large and small.

Carlson, D. 2011. Arctic ocean science and outreach: A perspective from the International Polar Year Programme Office. Oceanography 24(3):17, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.50.

Beszczynska-Möller, A., R.A. Woodgate, C. Lee, H. Melling, and M. Karcher. 2011. A synthesis of exchanges through the main oceanic gateways to the Arctic Ocean. Oceanography 24(3):82–99, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.59.

Dickson, B. 2009. Securing the legacy of the IPY. Nature Geoscience 2:374–376, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo538.

Perovich, D.K. 2011. The changing Arctic sea ice cover. Oceanography 24(3):162–173, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.68.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.