Announcing a Town Hall Meeting at AGU
The Future of NSF-funded Arctic Natural Science
Date: Thursday, 16 December 2004
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Location: Moscone West Convention Center, Room 3009
Hosted By: The University of Alaska and The University of Colorado
The town hall announcement is available on the AGU web site at:
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm04/index.php?town_hall=town_hall_i.htm&
pageRequest=events#thm
All arctic and subarctic investigators are invited to an AGU Town Hall
Meeting to discuss future arctic science priorities and the effects of
the current structure of the NSF Arctic Natural Sciences (ANS) program
on core disciplinary funding for arctic research. The Town Hall Meeting
is hosted by scientists from the University of Alaska and the University
of Colorado.
Organizers believe that core programs in ANS have suffered diminishing
funding in the past several years relative to OPP-funded large-scale
integrated initiatives with specialized foci, with the negative result
that support of individual-investigator exploratory science in arctic
natural sciences is increasingly threatened. Such exploratory science
programs are at the center of NSF goals as well as the source of
knowledge from which larger scale integrated initiatives proceed. The
effect of this shift in funding emphasis is compounded by the present
all-in-one structure of ANS, where proposals in glaciology, atmospheric
sciences, biological sciences, earth sciences, and oceanography are
handled in a single program without the benefit of review panels. The
situation is particularly acute for alpine glaciology, which unlike the
other four ANS areas has no other disciplinary home. Arctic science in
all five ANS areas, however, could benefit from an altered program
structure and more equitable funding levels.
Investigators and cognizant NSF officials are encouraged to attend this
meeting to discuss the current state of affairs in funding for arctic
natural science research as seen from the point of view of arctic
researchers. Topics to consider include:
1) whether the full breadth and depth of arctic research priorities are
being supported under current funding;
2) whether the organizational structure of ANS helps or hinders the
support and advancement of research in the arctic; and
3) if either ANS funding or organizational structure are found lacking,
what solutions the scientific community can offer as alternatives.
This Town Hall Meeting is not sponsored by the National Science
Foundation and the the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the
views of the National Science Foundation.
For more information contact:
Tad Pfeffer
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and
Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0450
Phone: 303-492-3480
E-mail: pfeffer [at] tintin.Colorado.EDU
Fax: 303-492-6388