NEESPI Team Page

The NEESPI's Current Evolution

Since 2004, NEESPI participants were able to seed a first set of proposals to the international (NATO, European Union, GEF) and national funding agencies and institutions (e.g., in the United States, Russia, Japan, UK, Germany, Finland, and Hungary), and to the International Polar Year (IPY). Some of these proposals have already been funded and officially joined to NEESPI (70 of them), other proposals have been funded (more than 20 of them) and a process of their recognition by NEESPI is on the way, but a large group of proposals is still under review.

During the past 18 months, the NEESPI program has been endorsed by several Earth System Science Partnership Program (ESSP) Programs and Projects (IGBP through iLEAPS, WCRP through CliC and GEWEX, and ESSP through GCP, GWSP, and GLP). In September 2006, the IGBP Science Steering Committee granted NEESPI the status of the IGBP External Project. Thereafter, the NEESPI program has requested from ESSP the status of an ESSP Integrated Regional Study in the northern part of Eurasia.

Coping with challenges of growth

Increase of the number of funded projects and their diversity creates a real challenge with scientific coordination among the projects and access to their data. Therefore, in summer-autumn 2005, the NEESPI community realized a need for clustering the research (and researchers) around several Thematic and Regional Focus Research Centers. These Centers began gradually evolving around the lead scientists with funded NEESPI Projects who are linked to international Research Projects (GLP, GWSP, CliC, etc). During the First NEESPI Science Team Meeting (February 2006, Laxenburg, Austria), two decisions that address this challenge were approved by the NEESPI Science Advisory Panel. These decisions handle the internal structure of scientific organization within NEESPI and the NEESPI Data Policy.

Internal structure of scientific organization within NEESPI

NEESPI Focus Research Centers (FRC)

Currently existing FRCs:

Center for Cold Land Processes and Arctic Coastal Studies
Center for Water System Studies
Center for Aerosol Studies
Center for Land Use Studies
Center for Biogeochemical Cycle Studies
Center for Land Cover Studies
Sopron Regional Focus Research Center for NEESPI Studies in Eastern Europe
Beijing Regional Focus Research Center for Dry Land Processes Studies
Regional Focus Research Center for NEESPI Studies in Siberia (Krasnoyarsk/Tomsk)

Projected FRCs:

Center for Integration of the NEESPI Results and Modeling Studies
and two more Regional NEESPI Focus Research Centers (RFRC):
   Regional Focus Research Center (Moscow, Russia)
   Regional Focus Research Center for NEESPI Studies in Far East (Vladivostok, Russia)

NEESPI Science and Data Support Centers

Within the United States:
For hydrometeorological information: National_Climatic_Data_Center,_Asheville,_NC
For remote sensing information: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Within the Russian Federation:
For hydrometeorological information:
Research_Institute_For_Hydrometeorological_Information,_Obninsk,_Kaluga Area
For remote sensing information: SCANEX Corp., Moscow
Within China with focus on East Asia: Beijing Climate Center

NEESPI Data Policy. There was a strong motion among the NEESPI researchers agaist conversion of NEESPI into a "gated" community. It was recognized that restrictions to data and research ideas and conversion Research Programs into "clubs" where sponsors' funds are distributed among a few who were lucky first to penetrate behind the gate, are contrproductive. This hampers both the scientific progress as well as its applications for the needs of society. To avoid this from happening it was desided (a) to eliminate "members only" access to this web site making its freely accessible to the international scientific community and (b) to adopt the NEESPI Data Policy that promotes free and unrestricted data exchange within the NEESPI community and regulates access to information produced by the NEESPI researchers for general public.