International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

1.5 Organization and Implementation of IPY:
2005–2009
Lead Authors:
Ian Allison and Igor Krupnik
Contributing Authors:
Paul Cutler, Kjell Danell, Cynan Ellis-Evans, Jerónimo López-Martínez, Nicola Munro,
Eduard Sarukhanian and Colin Summerhayes
Reviewers:
Michel Béland and Tillmann Mohr
By early 2005, following the publication of
the Framework document (Rapley et al.,
2004) and the call for the ‘Expressions of
Intent’ (EoI) for IPY projects (Chapter 1.3), a
significant transition was apparent in the IPY process.
An identifiable IPY community was emerging and
becoming active in the evolving IPY network. At the
same time, national committees and international
organizations began to interact with the emerging IPY
structure to ensure their role in the planning process.
Though the core elements of IPY 2007–2008 were
nominally in place since October-November 2004 —
the Joint Committee, the International Programme
Office, the Subcommittees of Data Management and
Education, and the network of science teams behind
emerging IPY projects — few were yet functioning.
Many members of the newly appointed Joint Committee
did not know each other and their regular communication
with each other and with the Programme Office
only started in January-February 2005. Their first
face-to-face meeting did not take place until March
2005. During that ‘interregnum’ phase, the embryonic
Programme Office, with Cynan Ellis-Evans serving as
Interim Director, was inundated with enquiries from
the science community, indicative of the early interest
and enthusiasm associated with IPY.
As IPY 2007–2008 unfolded, the elements of this
emerging structure started functioning. The Joint
Committee (JC) with its three Subcommittees on
Observations, Data Management, and Education,
Outreach and Communication; the International
Programme Office (IPO); the national IPY Committees
and their umbrella body called Heads of the Arctic and
Antarctic Secretariats (HAIS – Chapter 1.7); numerous
organizations and national funding agencies that
advanced the IPY; and 230+ endorsed international
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projects augmented by dozens of “national” IPY
initiatives – all of these eventually became active.
Some have already produced reports on their
activities during the IPY era, like the IPO (Chapter 1.6),
the Subcommittee on Data Management (Parsons
et al., 2010 – Chapter 3.11), the Subcommittee on
Observations (Mohr et al., 2010 – Part 3, Introduction),
the Subcommittee on Education and Outreach (Kaiser,
2010; Chapter 4.1).
This chapter presents the story of IPY 2007–2008
from the perspective of the Joint Committee. It addresses
the role of JC in the planning, implementation
and completion of IPY, primarily covering the JC meetings
and other major activities during 2005–2009.
Composition and role of the Joint
Committee
In selecting the membership for the JC, originally
of 14 scientists and five ex officio members (Appendix
1), 1 ICSU and WMO planners consciously deviated
from the pattern that was typical for similar supervisory
bodies in IPY-1, IPY-2 and IGY (Chapter 1.1). Few JC
members held senior administrative positions (Rapley,
Kotlyakov, Béland, Qin) and there were no official
representatives of the Scientific Unions, unlike in IGY
1957–1958, which was organized by a mixture of senior
science managers and scientific unions. Though
balance in national representation of scientists on the
JC was sought (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany,
Japan, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, U.K., and
U.S.A), no member of the JC was officially considered
his/her nation’s spokesperson. Rather, the sponsors,
ICSU and WMO, selected the JC membership from a
large list of candidates nominated by the national
committees and scientific organizations to bring the
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