Antarctic Funding Initiative
The future
Since its creation in 1998, the Natural Environment Research Council's Antarctic Funding Initiative (AFI) has proved to be a very successful scheme for funding responsive-mode research requiring access to BAS Antarctic infrastructure.
As a result of recent changes that NERC has made to the way research is funded and delivered, such proposals will in future be considered through the responsive-mode grant and fellowship schemes. This will enable all proposals that require access to BAS Antarctic infrastructure to compete on an equal footing with other responsive-mode proposals, so removing the upper limit on funding that was a consequence of having a separate AFI scheme.
Discussions have taken place between NERC and BAS about how best to make this change to ensure that the excellent working relationship with BAS, in considering feasibility and planning of logistics, remains. The new arrangements took effect for applications to the 10 June 2010 grant round, with the primary fieldwork season for successful proposals being 2012-13.
For further information please contact Martin Miller or Ned Garnett.