This new and forming ESSI Alliance may bring together projects selected under the Horizon Europe topic, Unlocking a safe operating space for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, with complementary projects funded through ESA’s FutureEO programme. The projects forming the Alliance may jointly work towards improving scientific understanding of the Southern Ocean, the Antarctic cryosphere and their interactions with the regional and global climate systems. Cooperation may focus on complementary research activities, including the use of novel satellite Earth observation datasets, in situ observations and modelling approaches.
Consortia are invited to prepare proposals for the forthcoming Horizon Europe and relevant ESA calls. Once the respective project portfolios are confirmed, a formal alliance kick-off will be organised to discuss and refine practical modalities of cooperation. Alliance partners will be invited to propose their own joint activities and outputs. These might include:
- Aligning monitoring campaigns, datasets, scenarios and model assumptions;
- Facilitating access to and uptake of satellite products and related methodologies through data sharing agreements and open science practices;
- Defining joint monitoring protocols, working towards defining community standards or aligning geographic scope;
- Coordinating data-management and open science approaches;
- Developing shared outputs such as jointly defined datasets, open tools, joint publications, community standards, assessment contributions and policy briefs;
- Joint communication activities;
- Training and capacity building activities, exchange of staff and/or young researchers.
Further exchanges during Horizon Europe Annual Meetings, relevant scientific workshops and conferences are encouraged, to provide opportunities to identify additional cooperation based on the evolving needs and added value for participating projects.