2.4 Inter-disciplinary research enabled by the RI
2.4.2 Alignment with international RIs
In the polar sciences context, international RIs are identified with the national Antarctic programs contributing to the ATS, SCAR, ILTER and GERI. There are two main models throughout the countries running national Antarctic programs: the centralised infrastructure approach (U.S.), which separates the infrastructure availability from the research component; and the polar institute approach (the majority of the other Antarctic countries), which co-manages the Antarctic operations and scientific research under a unified organisation. China combines both approaches by establishing a Polar Research Institute of China and the National Arctic and Antarctic Data Centre under the National Science and Technology Infrastructure. Other hybrid approaches can be found in Russia and Brazil, in which several institutions are responsible for different components of the Antarctic program.
The U.S. NSF Office of Polar Programs promotes creative and innovative scientific research, engineering, and education in and about the polar regions, catalysing fundamental discovery and understanding of polar systems and their global interactions to inform the nation and advance the welfare of all people. The U.S. National Science Foundation is the federal agency responsible for funding and managing U.S. activities in Antarctica, but the Foundation does not directly hire individuals for this work. Most are selected by participating organisations and institutions by means of a concerted science plan and periodic calls for proposals.
A few examples of “polar institutes” are the Australian Antarctic Division, the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and the Indian National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research.
The Australian Antarctic Division, based in Hobart, Tasmania, is part of the Australian Government’s Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. The Division is responsible for Australia’s presence and activities in the Australian Antarctic Territory and the Southern Ocean. The Division leads Australia’s Antarctic Program and the Australian Government’s scientific program in Antarctica.
Australia’s national interests and research are set out in the Australian Antarctic Strategy and 20 Year Action Plan. The Plan recognises Australia’s strong strategic and scientific interests in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and aims to build Australia’s role as a leader in Antarctica.
The Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) is a directorate under the Ministry of the Climate and Environment. The Institute’s activities are focused on environmental management needs in the polar regions. In addition to collaboration on environmental protection in the Barents region, the Institute dedicates much effort to research on climate, long-range transport of pollutants and their impact on the environment, and biodiversity. The institute is the environmental authority for Bouvet Island and for Norwegian activities in Antarctica. It administers the national Antarctic program and its research plan by means of one research department and four service departments, Operations and Logistics, Environment and Mapping, Communications, and Administration.
The Alfred Wegener Institute is primarily active in the cold and temperate regions of the world. As an internationally respected centre of expertise on polar and marine research, the Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the very few scientific institutions in the world that are equally active in the Arctic and Antarctic. It coordinates German polar research efforts, while also conducting research in the North Sea and adjacent coastal regions in Germany. The research programme "Marine, Coastal and Polar Systems” pools the scientific expertise of the AWI in regard to all geo-scientific, biological and climatological research themes in the Polar Regions, the Arctic Ocean and the Coastal and Shelf Sea Regions of the North Sea. AWI is composed of three scientific divisions and one division dedicated to administration and infrastructure management.
The National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) is India’s premier R&D institution responsible for the country’s research activities in the polar and Southern Ocean realms. The Centre represents the centralised organisation for the coordination and implementation of the Indian Antarctic Programme, including the maintenance of India’s permanent station in Antarctica. It facilitates the scientific research activities being undertaken by other national institutions and organisations in Antarctica, the Arctic and in the Indian Ocean sector of the Southern Ocean. It is composed of six departments, three dedicated to the science components, one for deep-sea exploration and mapping, and two dedicated to expeditions, operations and management.
SAPRI is currently aligned with the U.S. approach, since it focuses on infrastructure administration and management. However, it does not include the strategic science planning component, which is instead a mandate of the NSF Polar Office. The proposed Phase 3 would lead to the transition towards the approach that is most commonly found in the other Antarctic countries. NPI and NCPOR are the models more akin to the proposed development, although the SAPRI would further expand the research opportunities with the establishment of the Polar Lab, which is not present at the other institutions.
3 M ANAGEMENT P LAN
In highlighting the history of the science undertaken south of South Africa, the SAPRI also highlights the clear silo-like nature of the current status of polar research in our country. Many groups working within the same disciplines are not always aware of what equipment they may have available to them.
Discussions around SANAP take-over voyages and logistics versus the necessary science needing to be undertaken to support our very presence as a country in the polar regions is often fraught with misunderstandings. Given the marine and Polar community in South Africa is, by its nature, very small, this silo-like approach to conducting the National Antarctic Programme can be inefficient and limiting to both research projects and logistics operations alike.
This is one of the objectives of the SAPRI - to build a polar community that works synergistically with DEFF’s logistical components of sub-Antarctic and Antarctic base management as well as vessel and helicopter management. SAPRI will not be a successful venture if there is no clear and mutual agreement between the science and the logistics of polar research, with these relationships being consistently nurtured and mutually developed. Such coordination is envisaged to lead to the eventual establishment of a national polar institute, which would allow the logistics and science plans to be aligned, as happens in the majority of international polar programmes. A good level of integrated management will be required to operate SAPRI sustainably and economically. Such integrated management will promote complementarity and avoid duplication as well as drive the overall costs of polar research down to improve the return on investment. This obviously emphasises the importance of a common understanding and regular meetings, not only between the SAPRI and SANAP-logistics operational staff, but also between SAPRI's principal investors, the DSI and DEFF.
Given the distributed nature of SANAP and the need to engage with multiple research partners and institutions, the proposed management structure hinges on the consortium approach, in which the consortium manager will act as the main coordination hub and provider of administrative services to the various SAPRI components. Consortium partners will be involved through dedicated agreements that will specify the nature of the collaboration. The main principles are delineated in this chapter; the details will need to be fully defined by the governance bodies and the consortium manager once the proposal is approved and funded. Existing infrastructures currently funded through science programs and maintained by consortium partners will need to be harmonised within the SAPRI integrated facilities (IFs), and this process requires the existence of a legal entity representing SAPRI. Figure 12 presents a diagram of the proposed IFs introduced in the previous chapter, whereas full details on the governance plan will be illustrated in Chapter 4.
Figure 12 Layout of the SAPRI Integrated Facilities (IF) and their components. This diagram highlights the thematic relationship within the consortium and the scientific ambits that will guide the management organisation. The hierarchical organigram and the related dependencies among the consortium partners are presented in Chapter 4.