The International Project Office (IPO) serves as the secretariat for SOLAS and administers the project on a day-to-day basis.
The IPO is responsible for assisting the SSC in all aspects of its work, and collates and communicates information related to national and international SOLAS research. The IPO works with the sponsors to secure resources for SOLAS as an umbrella organisation. It also ensures effective coordination with other activities of the sponsors and will soon support a data management and archiving system for the project. The IPO will also keep a record of SOLAS products,and these are made freely available on the SOLAS website, wherever possible.
The IPO is currently located in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, UK and is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
SOLAS Staff
For a list of SOLAS staff and contacts please click here
Terms of Reference
The International Project Office (IPO) will:
* assist the SOLAS SSC in planning and carrying out scientific research;
* serve as a channel of communication between scientists working in different countries on various aspects of global change; and
* assist the SSC in collating information on national and regional programmes of global change research relating to SOLAS, to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of effort and that the Project makes effective use of existing knowledge in its analysis of processes and change at global scales.
The general tasks of an IPO are as follows:
* administering the Project on a day-to-day basis, under the long-term guidance of the SSC;
* securing financial and human resource support for the operation of the Office;
* coordinating research efforts, and planning and coordinating research campaigns and field programmes;
* providing project advocacy and promotion, enlisting wide international participation in the project;
* maintaining connections with relevant national and regional projects and with the host institution;
* ensuring effective co-ordination with other components of the IGBP, and other relevant international research programmes;
* disseminating information and research results;
* monitoring and assessing progress of the Project and the activities of the SSC; and
* establishing a data management and archiving system for the Project. This system should address issues of data quality, creation of data sets, metadata and catalogues, data archiving, data standards, external co-operation and linkages to data agencies, networking and distribution of data, and future instrumentation needs.
In addition, the IPO is expected to:
* provide day-to-day support to the work of the SSC, both to individual members and the SSC collectively;
* maintain and further develop links with its host institution; and
* provide the technical Secretariat for meetings of the SSC and other meetings convened by the SSC within the SOLAS framework.