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SCAR Circular 765 (electronic only)
27 Nov 2006
To:
_ SCAR Executive Committee
_ SCAR National Committees
_ ICSU Union Members
_ Associate Members (for information)
_ ICSU Secretariat (for information)
_ SCAR Chief Officers (for information)
Programme of Secondments to the SCAR Secretariat
Members are requested to consider seconding individuals to the SCAR Secretariat for short periods to gain experience of working in international scientific relations.
The objective of a secondment would be to have the individual work on some aspect of SCAR's business that was particularly pertinent to the region from which the individual came, but in an international context and as part of SCAR's effort to take a pan-Antarctic approach to solving major scientific problems. Tasks could involve, for example, ensuring that individuals from the region in question are fully engaged in one or more of the 5 SCAR Scientific Research Programmes, or that the various agencies in that region are making their Antarctic data available to the wider community through JCADM, or that the SCAR web site provides coherent and comprehensive advice on science, education and outreach to individuals in that region. The objectives should be discussed and agreed with the Secretariat prior to the secondment.
The SCAR Secondment Programme is one means of implementing part of the new SCAR Strategy for Capacity Building Education and Training, which is designed to enable SCAR to take a more systematic approach than in the past to helping to develop scientific capacity in all SCAR Members, especially with respect to younger scientists. The strategy is available on the SCAR web site as WP28 (http://www.scar.org/members/xxix/).
Given that both the SCAR Secretariat and the IPY International Project office (IPO) are both in Cambridge, the SCAR secondee would also have an opportunity to extend his or her stay by spending a period working in or for the IPY IPO, housed at the British Antarctic Survey, on objectives to be discussed and agreed with the Director of the IPO. The IPY has drawn extraordinary interest from scientists of many specialties and many nationalities. A cautious assessment prior to the IPY start shows more than 200 projects, addressing a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics in both polar regions. It seems likely that IPY will involve several 10's of thousands of individuals from at least 60 nations. At this point IPY has the potential of unprecedented quantity, variety, and quality of research, all vital and relevant to the overall goal of polar science with global impact. Like SCAR, the IPY will offer substantial coordination and communication challenges, internally among so broad a range of scientific disciplines and externally to science and education systems at all levels and to the general public.
Increasingly, both the SCAR Secretariat and the IPY IPO will rely not only on energetic local staff and on the talent and energy of volunteer participants in working groups and sub-committees, but also on international secondments to the Secretariat and the IPO.
Delegates agreed to allocate up to US$ 5,000 in 2007 and in 2008 to facilitate such secondments for Members where the cost could be a stumbling block, in particular to subsidise the costs of living in Cambridge. The secondments should be for a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of 12. The incumbents will share the office of the SCAR Executive Officer.
Dr Colin Summerhayes
SCAR Executive Director
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