International barter arrangements
NERC's barter arrangements provide the science community with access to marine facilities in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United States of America.
These arrangements allow for no-cost exchanges of ship-time and major marine equipment, and promote a more efficient and cost-effective use of each country's resources by giving the scientific communities access to a wider range of marine facilities and geographical areas in a given year than would otherwise be possible.
At present these arrangements give the science community access to 39 research ships and other marine facilities such as manned submersibles, remotely operated vehicles, towed arrays, and shipboard surveying systems.
UK-USA
Since the mid-1980's NERC has had a bi-lateral barter arrangement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).
This arrangement provides the NERC science community with access to the marine facilities that are programmed by the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS).
At this time the UNOLS is responsible for the scheduling of scientific cruises aboard the 27 research vessels located at 20 operating institutions in the USA.
More information on the UNOLS and the marine facilities that it programmes can be found on the UNOLS website.
UK-France-Germany-The Netherlands
Since 1996 NERC has had a tri-partite barter arrangement with Germany and France.
Under the aegis of this agreement a Marine Facilities Tripartite Group (MFTG) was established which comprises the managers and planners of the respective fleets of scientific research ships and major marine facilities.
The Tripartite Group meets twice a year with the primary objective of bartering ship-time and exchanging major marine equipment.
In 2002, the Netherlands became a full member of the MFTG and in 2003 Spain started the process of joining the Group by becoming an observer at its meetings.
More information can be found on the Ocean Facility Exchange Group website.
UK-Norway
In May 2005 NERC formed a barter arrangement with the Institute of Marine Research (IMR) and the University of Bergen (UoB).
This agreement will provide the NERC science community with access to the four research vessels Jan Mayen, G O Sars, Johan Hjort and Håkon Mosby.
More information about the research vessels can be found on the IMR website.
Utilisation data
Since 1996 NERC has substantially increased both the number of barter exchanges and the number of days exchanged.
NERC's barter exchanges since 1996NERC's barter exchanges since 1996 are detailed in this Word document (21 Kb).
