Application for Scientific Projects to be Carried out on POLARSTERN

Operators of large and medium-sized German research vessels have commonly established a procedure which offers the opportunity to exchange the applications for ship's time for individual ships within the framework of the expert group "Koordinationsgruppe Schiff" constituted by the "Konsortium Deutscher Meeresforschung" and the "Senatskommission für Ozeanographie". Such a coordinating system will not only provide equivalent standards for all ships, but will also optimize operational services. Any liabilities of the current ship managements will not be affected by this agreement. AWI is in charge of POLARSTERN, DFG for METEOR, MARIA S. MERIAN, PTJ for SONNE and the steering group medium-sized ships respectively the operating companies for POSEIDON, ALKOR, HEINCKE.

Small-sized research vessels are excluded from this arrangement.

Scientific evaluations will also continue to be executed by the responsible panels or boards, i.e. the "Nutzerbeirat" for POLARSTERN, the "Senatskommission für Ozeanographie" for METEOR and MARIA S. MERIAN, the expert panel "Meeresforschung mit FS SONNE" for SONNE, the steering group for POSEIDON, ALKOR, HEINCKE.

Applications for POLARSTERN can be submitted in English or German to the Alfred Wegener Institute, either by email:

Polarstern-Coordination(at)awi.de

or by mail:

Alfred Wegener Institute
Attn: Petra Steffens
PO Box 12 01 61
27515 Bremerhaven

according to the guidelines with a cover page. 

Applications for METEOR and MERIAN can be submitted in English or German to the Senatskommission für Ozeanographie der DFG. For further information please refer to web page:

http://www.dfg-ozean.de

Applications for FS SONNE must be submitted in German and addressed to PTJ MGS. For further information please refer to web page:

http://www.fz-juelich.de/ptj/forschungsschiffe

Applications for medium-sized research vessels can be submitted in English and German to the steering group. For further information please refer to web page:

www.io-warnemuende.de/general/steering-group/index.htm

Proposals can consist of projects from individuals but we encourage groups of common scientific interest, logistic needs or regional correspondence to join to group proposals. For group proposals a responsible head has to be designated. Proposals from foreign countries can be taken into account within the capacitiy limits. They should be submitted in the framework of cooperation agreements or related to German proposals.

Normally the applications will be evaluated by members of the Advisory Board (Nutzerbeirat) who will not only review them by their scientific content, but will also consider the feasibility and the suitability of implementing the projects on POLARSTERN.

Usually the plan covers three years and should be completed one year prior to the beginning of the cruise. The current plan will be valid until 2011. In 2009 the next call for applications for the period 2011 until 2013/14 is planned and will only be released on the web page, i.e. there will not be an overall written notice.

However, during the term of the actual plan it is possible to submit applications (i.e. in the context of DFG-applications) which will be realized if they fit into the planned schedule without significant perturbation of the planned work. The deadline for these applications is November 15, yet a potential implementation of these projects will not be effected before the succeeding Arctic cruise. The set schedule will not be altered except for urgent reasons. If it seems likely that the proposed work can be incorporated into the current programme, it will be submitted for review. This evaluation procedure does not apply to smaller projects which will complement projects already evaluated.

In the future the planning procedure will be as follows:

1. A call for applications with a deadline of 1 December 2009 will be released on the POLARSTERN web page by the coordinator.
2. The evaluation will be performed anonymously by at least two members of the "Nutzerbeirat" or external specialists
3. Setting up of a schedule by the coordinator
4. Meeting of the Nutzerbeirat in early 2010
5. Possible modification of the schedule depending on outcome of meeting
6. Acceptance of schedule by the Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute
7. Submission of applications for the next year with deadline 1 November and without any prior notice to be included if possible
8. After evaluation consideration of incorporating applications into the current scheme

June 26, 2009