International Polar Year 2007–2008 - WMO

aising interest to the social issues that are common
to both polar regions, such as history of science, early
economic exploration, sustainable economies, governance
and political regimes, tourism, heritage preservation
and engagement of local constituencies, to
name but a few.
Funding. Twenty-one projects (out of 23) that
reported their funding between 2006 and 2010 had a
cumulative budget of $31.2M U.S.. This is, evidently, a
low estimate of the level of funding for social science
and humanities research in IPY, since it covers neither
all endorsed international projects nor projects in
other fields with a substantial human component.
Also, it does not include national efforts supported
by the national IPY programs in Canada, Russia,
Sweden, the U.S.A. and other countries. For example,
the total budget for 13 Canadian projects in social
science and community studies, and human health
was $21M (David Hik, pers. comm.); the NSF overall
funding for social science research in 2006–2010 is
estimated at $19M, of which only half was allocated
to the internationally endorsed IPY projects. Other
U.S. agencies, like NOAA, the National Park Service
and the Smithsonian Institution, also contributed their
resources to IPY social science research. In addition,
many ‘in-kind’ expenses, such as researchers’ salaries
and travel costs, were often covered via their host
institutions. It could be reasonably estimated that the
overall amount of ‘new’ money for international IPY
projects in the social science and humanities research
was close to $40M, plus a yet unknown amount of
Fig. 2.10-4 . Inuit
polar ice trail
network connecting
communities across
frozen land and water
is being recreated
every year, since time
immemorial
(Aporta, 2009).
funding (and in-kind contribution) for the ‘national’ IPY
efforts, including conferences, websites, publications,
travel and student support.
IPY highlighted the crucial role of funding for
research in the polar social sciences and humanities,
which produced additional tangible results. In
summer 2005, the European Science Foundation
(ESF) initiated a new ‘EUROCORES (European
Collaborative Research) Programme’ called Histories
from the North – Environments, Movements, Narratives
(BOREAS – Vitebsky and Klein, 2005, 2006/2007). It
was operational for five years, 2006–2010, with the
overall budget of € 6M (about $8.5M) that eventually
funded seven international project clusters (Klein
et al., 2007; ESF, 2010), including several endorsed
IPY projects (nos. 30, 100, 386, 436). 9 Though only a
portion of the BOREAS budget was used for the IPY
efforts, two corresponding initiatives resulted in an
unprecedented rise in polar social science funding
during the IPY years.
Technological innovations. IPY generated major
advancements in new technologies used in polar
social science research and facilitated the transfer of
many of these technologies to polar residents and
indigenous people. Several IPY social projects were
focused on the creation of electronic maps and atlases
(cybercartography – nos. 46, 166 – Fig. 2.10-5; Pulsifer
et al., 2010) and new datasets and data management
services for local communities (nos. 162, 164, 187,
247, 399). They used satellite imagery (nos. 166, 300,
399; Alfthan et al., 2010 – Fig. 2.10-6), Google Earth
s C I e n C e P r o g r a m 321