IPY Expression of Intent Information Available
Polar Research Board
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
For further information, please go to:
http://us-ipy.org
The International Council for Science (ICSU) and World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) has issued a call for preliminary expressions of
intent from those seeking to participate in the International Polar Year
(IPY) 2007-2008. The U.S. National Committee to the IPY has made these
available on our web site:
http://us-ipy.org
Briefly, there are three relevant documents:
- A letter from ICSU-WMO explaining the procedure and deadline (14
January)
- Annex 1: Expression of Intent Form
- Annex 2: Criteria for Identifying IPY Activities
These materials are also posted at:
http://www.ipy.org
The ICSU-WMO letter is sure to raise some questions, and here are some
advance answers:
Regarding the use of the term "proposal": In the United States, please
ignore the use of the term "proposal" in the cover memo; the term of
preference in the U.S. setting and that used on the form is "expression
of intent."Clarification of the purpose of the Expression of Intent process: The
purpose of this call is to provide the new ICSU-WMO Joint Committee with
information it needs to facilitate projects and activities within IPY
that are consistent with the themes and observational goals outlined in
IPY planning documents. In essence, they are beginning the process of
assigning the IPY imprimatur. This is not a process by which proposals
will be funded (that will be accomplished via normal funding
opportunities, such as the recent NSF-OPP Arctic Research Opportunity,
Program Solicitation 05-514).Regarding the "size" of activities that should be submitted: Although
a key motivation for this call is to encourage larger, more complex and
logistics-dependent activities to take more formal steps toward
implementation, ALL levels of projects and activities are encouraged to
submit. Large umbrella programs (e.g., SEARCH, GEOSS, CoML) might be
represented by multiple submissions of projects. When in doubt, submit
your idea so that the full range of activities is considered.Finally, for U.S. scientists, when you are answering Question 2.6 in
the Expression of Intent Form, which asks if the submitted idea has been
"endorsed at national or international levels," please enter that your
expression of interest is in the process of being considered by the U.S.
National Committee for IPY. The USNC for IPY will look at all the U.S.
submissions from the main ICSU-WMO database and provide feedback to all
after the January 14 deadline and before the June deadline for full
Expressions of Intent.