Proceedings - C-SRNWP Project

ALADIN: now a Programme; with a new governance;
with new emphases; and with “HARMONIE” as
background
J.-F. Geleyn
CHMI & Météo-France
ALADIN Programme Manager
Introduction
Since the last EWGLAM/SRNWP meeting of 2005, many changes happened within the scope
of the ALADIN Consortium. What was still implicitly considered as a Project, fourteen years
after its effective launching, became a Programme at the occasion of the signature by 15
Partners (Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Hungary,
Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tunisia) of the third ALADIN
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU3) on 21/10/05 in Bratislava. This MoU3 differs
significantly from the two previous ones:
• The ‘Programme’ aspects are (i) a clearer definition of Membership and of the conditions
of accession to the status of full Membership, (ii) the establishment of a basic budgetary
procedure (with the previously existing efforts of Météo-France and RC LACE continuing
independently) and (iii) a completely new governance, the details of which shall be listed
now.
• The ALADIN General Assembly (GA) keeps its composition and decision role, but it gets a
stable Chairmanship.
• There is now a Policy Advisory Committee (PAC), that meets once or twice a year.
• Each Partner must identify a Local Team Manager (LTM) with a reinforced amount of
rights and duties for the day to day progress of the Programme.
• There is a Programme Manager (PM) for the overall coordination of planned actions as
well as for the contacts with the Chair of the GA, the PAC, RC LACE, the specific features
happening in Toulouse and HIRLAM.
• The PM gets assistance from both a Committee for Scientific and System Issues (CSSI,
structured by topics) and a Support Team (structured by type of tasks).
In a nutshell, the three issues that the new structure/governance gave priority to within the
past twelve months were:
• Establishing a better ‘transversal support to operations’ in order to save manpower and to
streamline some previously non-codified aspects.
• Finding a clearer definition for the links between the AROME and ALARO sub-projects
(see Part II).
• Kicking off the collection and use of the central budget.
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