Marine facilities programme
Planning cycle
All marine facility programming is carried out on the basis of financial year periods (ie 1 April - 31 March). Applicants requiring a place in the marine facilities programme must confirm they have funding on their online Ship-time & Marine Equipment form (SME) by 1 April to be considered for a place in the following year's programme.
For example, an SME that has funding confirmed by April 1 2012 will be considered for a place in the 2013-14 programme. Applications received after this date will be considered for inclusion on an opportunistic basis (ie if there is a space in the programme), or rolled forward into the subsequent year's planning process.
The marine facilities programme is usually published in September, for the following operational year.
Planning across all of the NERC ships is carried out according to the NERC prioritisation criteria.
Cruise postponement policy
NERC's cruise postponement policy has been put in place to deal with the occurrence of exceptional issues that may potentially affect the ability of a ship to carry out a scientific cruise adequately and where the time required to resolve such issues may result in a change to the published marine facilities programme.