Brief
description of Czech Antarctic Research Infrastructure (CARI)
State of Art
The current RI project supported by the MEYS (i.e. "CzechPolar
project", 2010–2015) is oriented to cover construction and
operational costs and to provide substantial enlargement of
existing infrastructures of two Czech Polar research
stations (one in Antarctica and second one in the Arctic).
For practical reasons it was decided to divide both parts of
this project into two independent RIs for evaluation process
purposes, as well as for potential future financial support.
Therefore this document is strictly aimed on the Czech
Antarctic Research Infrastructure (CARI) owned and operated
by the Masaryk University (from here also referred as the
MU). Nevertheless the main target of the future project
shall remain the same as of related part of the original
one.
The mission of the CARI is to provide technical,
logistical and laboratory support for complex
multidisciplinary excellent research of Antarctic geo- and
ecosystems, their structure, functioning and recent changes
in particular. The main aim of the RI support project is to
maintain a high standard of scientific infrastructure,
laboratory facilities and temporal field camps in particular
at the Johann Gregor Mendel Czech Antarctic Station, James
Ross Island, Antarctica (austral summer station), incl. its
operations, logistics and innovation, and to provide its
services both to national and international scientific
community. The CARI also provides a wide spectrum of
scientific possibilities for junior and senior scientists to
work with data and/or samples collected in Antarctica, using
the distributed parts of the RI located at the MU, Brno.
Besides the main mission of the CARI, the main emphasis is
given to the widening of the range of related scientific
topics and the simplification of users’ access to the RI.
Future development
Several updates are planned for nearest future. The aim
of further CARI’s development is to continue in the
improvements of all its parts. Above all it means (1) the
J.G. Mendel Station in Antarctica, and (2) the Extreme
Environments Laboratory (EEL), specialized biological
laboratory designed for research of extremophilic organisms
living under marginal conditions in Antarctic ecosystems and
their analogues, located at the MU, Brno. The future
development also counts with establishing of (3) the
Climatological & Geoscientific Laboratory (Clima-Geo Lab) at
the MU, Brno. The Clima-Geo Lab will be mainly focused on
the study of Antarctic atmospheric, glacier, permafrost and
lacustrine geo- and ecosystems, and their recent and past
changes driving mechanisms. The last part to be promoted
under the future CARI support project is (4) the Open Access
Data Unit (OADU, Brno). The OADU will provide a platform for
(inter)national community of scientists dealing with
Antarctic science to share and use the research databases.
The user’s access shall be optimised.
Open Access
The Czech Antarctic Research Infrastructure applies an
open access policy to the most of provided services (e.g.
use of laboratories, scientific instruments, databases,
sample collections and any other equipment such as rubber
boats for coastal navigation, technical workshop,
presentation devices, etc.), incl. its operational costs and
the working time of RI’s staff are free of charge for all
approved national and international users. This free of
charge open access policy does not apply on travel and
accommodation costs, as these costs are not included in the
CARI’s basic support and therefore shall be covered by the
users themselves. As the travel costs for the remote Polar
Regions are not negligible, usually there is no problem with
the capacity allocation. In theoretical case when the
demand/offer rate of the CARI’s capacities is not balanced,
the Scientific Board’s Recommendations are intended to
address the issues of devoting the CARI’s limited capacity
to the top scientific quality research proposals.
Nevertheless, since the establishment of the infrastructure,
such state was not achieved, so this procedure remains ready
for the future.
All ethical and legal questions related to the CARI’s
outputs and activities are solved in accordance with
respective authorities: the special international
legislation (especially the Antarctic Treaty’s Madrid
Protocol of Environmental Protection), the national
legislation, and the host institutions’ regulations, which
have their special departments established to deal with such
issues. As the hosting institution (public national
university) is tied together with the CARI, there is
generally no risk of any violation in this way. Concerning
the particular issues, such as protection of the
intellectual rights to the datasets provided via
open-access, the users are allowed to use the data to
achieve their own original results, but they are formally
prevented (usually by the agreement, letter of
understanding, or contractually) from publishing the
datasets themselves without permission of the CARI or
responsible entitled authors respectively.
Generally, the users are formally (usually by the
agreement, letter of understanding, or contractually) bind
to state the acknowledgement to the CzechPolar2 RI in all of
their relevant outputs, incl. stating the MEYS and its Large
Research Infrastructure Operation Programme as the provider
of the public support for CARI’s operational costs.
|