IARPC Collaborations: A Virtual Hub for Arctic Research

Editor's Notes

1. In the U.S. there are many agencies within the federal government that conduct research on the Arctic Some of the ones you might be familiar with include National aeronautic and space administration The national oceanographic and atmospheric administration The national science foundation And the coast guard However, and everybody take a deep breath for a second because that’s not all
2. Here is a more complete list of the various agencies doing some kind of work in the arctic
3. The interagency arctic research policy committee was established by an act of congress in 1984 The primary purpose is to coordinate the efforts of these agencies, acting as a hub And a 2010 presedential memo made IARPC part of the executive branch of government, and though we are currently between executive directors, when we do have one he sits at the office of science and technology policy in the white house And the act also enables iarpc to coordinate and promote cooperative Arctic scientific research programs with other nations
4. You may have already heard of IARPC We play a central role fulfilling the US commitments to the 2016 Arctic Science Ministerial This was the first ever ministerial held in September 2016 in Washington DC Science Ministers from 24 nations gathered to discuss Arctic research priorities and sign a Joint Statement on increased international collaboration on Arctic science and inclusion of Indigenous peoples in understanding and responding to changes in the Arctic. The second Arctic science ministerial will be hosted jointly by the European Commission, Finland, and Germany and will take place in October of this year in Berlin
5. Although the itself is a federal government only committee
6. Through IARPC Collaborations we open our work to non-Federal Arctic researchers and stakeholders. Implementation of the plan is open government The real action is below the waterline where IARPC Collaborations operates (with scuba gear). IARPC Collaborations brings together Federal government and non-Federal government researchers and other stakeholders, including those overseas, to work together to solve hard problems. This innovative exercise in open government has been very effective in the implementation of Arctic Research Plan 2013-2017. IARPC Collaborations has realized an unprecedented degree of interagency communication, coordination and collaboration that has advanced Arctic science in collaboration with hundreds of people from outside the Federal government. IARPC will continue to use IARPC Collaborations for the implementation of Arctic Research Plan 2017-2021. As you heard a moment ago, the new Arctic Research Plan has nine goals. The implementation of the Plan will begin with nine Collaboration Teams, one for each goal. The Environmental Intelligence goal, which brings together observations, data and models, will have three working groups, one for each of those topics.
7. Through IARPC Collaborations we open our work to non-Federal Arctic researchers and stakeholders. Implementation of the plan is open government The real action is below the waterline where IARPC Collaborations operates (with scuba gear). IARPC Collaborations brings together Federal government and non-Federal government researchers and other stakeholders, including those overseas, to work together to solve hard problems. This innovative exercise in open government has been very effective in the implementation of Arctic Research Plan 2013-2017. IARPC Collaborations has realized an unprecedented degree of interagency communication, coordination and collaboration that has advanced Arctic science in collaboration with hundreds of people from outside the Federal government. IARPC will continue to use IARPC Collaborations for the implementation of Arctic Research Plan 2017-2021. As you heard a moment ago, the new Arctic Research Plan has nine goals. The implementation of the Plan will begin with nine Collaboration Teams, one for each goal. The Environmental Intelligence goal, which brings together observations, data and models, will have three working groups, one for each of those topics.
8. Most of the work of IARPC Collaborations is conducted by our nine thematic collaboration teams You can see these teams are quite interdisciplinary and cover many aspects of research in the Arctic
9. Here is a closer look at our coastal resilience collaboration team Which aims to strengthen the resilience of our coastal communities Such as shismaref which you see pictured here, a small Inupiaq Eskimo village in Alaska that is severely threatened by climate change This team is led by Federal Program Managers from the NSF, NOAA, and the USGS, As well as a non-fed leader from the Inuit Circumpolar Council Members of the team include researchers and stakeholders from academia, non-profit, industry, State of Alaska, Indigenous and international organizations.
10. Each collaboration team meets monthly via webinar The meetings frequently include presentations on research And these presentations are also recorded and available on our webinar archive and youtube channel Anybody is welcome to join a meeting And to make these meetings truly collaborative and valuable for building connections there is always a section of the agenda where anybody is invited to share a brief update on their work or any other resources they’d like to share
11. Time zones in the US range from UTC -8 in Alaska to UTC -4 So our meetings are usually not held at times that are convenient for European and Asian time zones However..
12. Our website is time zone neutral! You can consider our website the virtual hub for US activity in arctic research Here you can stay up to date with what any federal agency is working on in artic research, as well as non-federal arctic researchers This is showing the home page when you log in You can see on the left column the timeline of posts from members We also have a calendar of events An archive of webinars And a mechanism where anyone can post to the timeline on the right
13. anybody is welcome to make a post to the website For example, this post is advertising the EU-PolarNet event that will take place next month at the POLAR conference in Davos, Switzerland
14. Anything posted to the website will be included in our email digest The digest is delivered weekly to our over 1500 website members
15. We will continue to use the IARPC Collaborations website as the principal means of communication and implementation If you haven’t already, we invite you to visit the website and join the nearly 1500 members of this collaborative enterprise. share information with the broader Arctic research community.