The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge, has announced its participation in International Polar Year (IPY), which begins in March 2007.
The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), University of Cambridge, has announced its participation in International Polar Year (IPY), which begins in March 2007.
The year will be the biggest internationally coordinated research effort for 50 years, as thousands of scientists from 60 countries focus their attention on the Earth’s polar regions. SPRI’s plans involve research, international collaboration on polar information and major exhibitions on polar themes.
Staff at SPRI are conducting a number of major research projects during the International Polar Year, including Professor Julian Dowdeswell’s research on the Greenland Ice Sheet, its past and present behaviour and the implications for global sea-level rise. The NERC have funded a joint project between the Scott Polar Research Institute and Durham University, which will involve a geophysical cruise of the UK’s ice-strengthened research vessel James Clark Ross to the continental margin of West Greenland to investigate the past flow of one of the ten major outlet glaciers draining mass from the Greenland Ice Sheet.
SPRI will also take part in a large international project, with an extensive web-based component, on the history of previous International Polar and Geophysical Years, bringing items together from collections in numerous countries. Partners in Canada and throughout Europe will be involved. Professor Dowdeswell is leading this international Museums group initiative, 'IPY Histories: International Polar Year Activities Past and Present, Museum and Virtual Exhibitions', which is aimed at making the polar regions in general, and the IPY in particular, widely accessible to the public. By bringing the rich and complex history of the previous IPYs to the fore in physical and virtual exhibitions, SPRI will project the work of the forthcoming IPY to the widest possible audience, through a series of exhibits in major centres or institutions of key IPY countries.
The SPRI Library is also a partner in two major initiatives for the IPY. Firstly, it will jointly manage the IPY Publications Database, with partners in Canada (ASTIS) and the USA (AGI), in which information about all the scientific publications relating to the 2007-08 IPY will be stored. Secondly, SPRI will digitise its collection of grey literature published during previous International Polar Years, in partnership with the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado.
SPRI is a leading centre for research into both polar regions, and is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge. Its research groups investigate a range of issues in both the environmental sciences and social sciences of relevance to the Arctic and Antarctic. Its renowned polar library, which includes the Shackleton Memorial Library, has comprehensive holdings on the polar regions, with exceptional archival collections relating to the exploration of the Antarctic and Arctic. There are also extensive online resources, including bibliographic and other information. The Scott Polar Research Institute also holds a collection of artefacts, paintings, drawings, photographs and other material. A proportion of this is exhibited in the Museum which is freely open to anyone with an interest in the polar regions.
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