From: Rosemary Young (STFC)

Following the recommendation of the Wakeham review, funding responsibility for solar terrestrial physics research which relates to the Earth is being transferred to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).  The two research councils have drawn up the following agreement to assist the research community:

Responsibility for Funding Solar Terrestrial PhysicsOn the advice of the Wakeham review, NERC and STFC have agreed the following definition of which parts of solar terrestrial physics research are most relevant to the NERC mission:

The parts of solar terrestrial physics research which are most relevant to the NERC mission are those whose primary goal is to understand the Earth’s environment from the deep interior to the upper atmosphere (i.e., mesosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere). We refer to this as Earth-oriented solar terrestrial physics.

NERC and STFC have also agreed the following set of principles as guidance for the community and research partners:

• STFC retains responsibility for funding space-based facilities (spacecraft, instruments and operations) for solar terrestrial physics and their associated primary exploitation.  NERC becomes a stakeholder in the selection process for Earth-oriented solar terrestrial physics missions;

• NERC assumes responsibility for funding ground-based instruments for Earth-oriented solar terrestrial physics supported through EISCAT (http://e7.eiscat.se/)[1];

• NERC assumes responsibility for funding Earth-oriented solar terrestrial physics research, except that primarily exploiting STFC-funded space-based facilities;

• STFC assumes responsibility for funding all non-Earth-oriented solar terrestrial physics research (e.g., fundamental space plasma physics and not related to the Earth).

Further advice with respect to current or future support for these areas of research can be obtained from:

STFC:

For space-based facilities and projects – Rosemary Young (rosemary.young@stfc.ac.uk, tel: 01793 442135)

For research grants – Kim Burchell (kim.burchell@stfc.ac.uk, tel: 01793 442021)

NERC:

For facilities: Lin Kay (rlfk@nerc.ac.uk , tel: 01793 416600)

For research grants: Bill Eason (wre@nerc.ac.uk, tel: 01793 411961)

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[1]NERC is working with EISCAT and STFC to transfer responsibility for EISCAT in the UK from STFC to NERC.