Two Antarctic organisations have joined forces to launch Fellowships for early career researchers. The Fellowships are worth up to $US15,000 each and 6 Fellowships (4 SCAR, 2 COMNAP) were awarded in 2014. The SCAR Fellowships are awarded to: Jaimie Cleeland (Australia), Camila Negrão Signori (Brazil), Fiona Shanhun (New Zealand) and Manoj M.C. (India). The COMNAP Fellowships are awarded to: Sandra Potter (Australia) and Keith Soal (South Africa).
This year, 25 applications were received. The winners of the SCAR Fellowships will carry out a range of scientific research in areas including long-term mark–recapture data on albatrosses, microbial diversity in the Southern Ocean, CO2 flux in Antarctic Dry Valley soils and biomarker based reconstruction of late Quaternary palaeoceanographic conditions. The COMNAP Fellowship recipients will carry out a project on topics of environmental policy and a technical project to understand ice loading on polar research vessels. Candidates come from a wide geographic spread of countries, and further detailed demographic information will be available on the SCAR website in the coming weeks.
The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR) has been offering scientific fellowships to early career scientists since 2005. Such fellowships have enabled Antarctic scientists to participate in a range of significant research including using ice cores to determine proxies for the Southern Annular Mode, a molecular study of Antarctic ostracods, and investigating particulate carbon and biogenic silica in sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Since 2005, twenty-nine SCAR Fellowships have been awarded.
In 2011, the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) launched the Antarctic Research Fellowship Scheme, offering one fellowship for an early career person in order to carry out research within a COMNAP National Antarctic Program. With this year's awards, there have been two COMNAP Fellowships awarded for a total of six awards since the scheme began. The Fellowships support the scientific goals of SCAR and the international cooperation goal of COMNAP to develop and promote best practice in managing the support to Antarctic science. The
fellowships enable the early career researchers to join a project team from another country, opening up new opportunities and often creating research partnerships that last many years and over many Antarctic research seasons. Many of the projects' results were presented at the recent SCAR Open Science Conference held in Auckland, New Zealand in late August 2014.
Background information:
The Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR)
www.scar.org
Contact: Renuka Badhe, Executive Officer
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+44 7889719766
The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU). SCAR is charged with initiating, developing and coordinating high quality international scientific research in the Antarctic region, and on the role of the Antarctic region in the Earth system. The scientific business of SCAR is conducted by its Standing Scientific Groups which represent the scientific disciplines active in Antarctic research and report to SCAR. In addition to carrying out its primary scientific role, SCAR also provides objective and independent scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings and other organizations on issues of science and conservation affecting the management of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP)
www.comnap.aq
Contact: Michelle Rogan-Finnemore, Executive Secretary
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+643 364-2273
COMNAP brings together the National Antarctic Programs of 29 Antarctic Treaty countries. Formed in 1988, the purpose of COMNAP is to develop and promote best practice in managing the support of scientific research in Antarctica. It does this by: Serving as a forum to develop practices that improve effectiveness of activities in an environmentally responsible manner; Facilitating and promoting international partnerships; Providing opportunities and systems for information exchange; and Providing the Antarctic Treaty System with objective and practical, technical and non-political advice drawn from the National Antarctic Programs' pool of expertise.