Name – Meeting Title – Location, Date Transnational Access Activities in FP7 Phil Brown

Transnational Access in FP7 Issues from mid-term review restricted flight time on individual projects Contributions to leading-edge science access for new instruments – certification / installation costs scientific users / groups per project: Cost-effectiveness

Transnational Access in FP7 Types of TA activity: Instrument development. Leading-edge instruments can contribute to future science impact. Campaigns need to be “large” in order to justify certification / installation costs Summer schools. External evaluation of potential value? Science projects. Bigger field projects likely to have stronger science impact. Encourage clustering with existing projects. Need to avoid double-funding with EU money.

Instrument development work Analogy to NCAR/NSF IDEAS Can we make call for cluster of instrument proposals to take place in medium term of project? Need time to acquire the additional certification / installation funding from alternative sources Can we pre-allocate an additional slice of hours to one or more aircraft above the initial level allocation? Would enable specific instrument development call to have max impact

Clustering with existing projects Successful examples of this in FP6 OFFGREEN added 10 additional flight hours to GFDEX project already funded on the FAAM BAe by UK academic funding (NERC). EUFAR user groups have effective access to significantly larger project to enhance science Transit flying costs can be covered by the existing project Can the existing project accommodate additional flying hours into its schedule? Original proposal has probably already requested a realistic amount of flight time from its national funding body and a realistic amount of time in which to accommodate it.

Promotion of TA Improved impact in terms of proposals from countries without existing facilities (52%) but possibilities for further increase Uneven take-up of different aircraft categories Specific promotions for categories that were under-utilized in FP6? Promotion of activities that involve joint use of different aircraft categories COPS (summer 2007) involved a whole fleet of aircraft doing different types of measurements directed to common aims

TA workflow and project review FP7 will start with largely the same process as FP6 finishes with Any further changes need to be rapidly identified and introduced Have introduced a number of improvements over the course of FP6 Science peer review probably remains the most problematic stage – indeterminate duration

Transnational Access in FP7 Management of TA funding surplus We have introduced a scheme (at 3 rd Man.Mtg) to redistribute funds from aircraft with low take-up to others with higher demand This has already operated successfully to enable some TA projects to proceed on aircraft that had used their initial allocation Has potential impacts on the total number of projects and user groups that might be serviced – contract issue. Scheme for managing this impact by restricting flows of re-allocated funding

Changes to TA funding rules under FP7 Still restricted to simple User Fee (cost per flight hour) No option to add separate fees for instrument certification / installation Restriction to 20% of total activity (including TA activities) Unlikely to cause problems if calculated over 4yr term with TA access at similar levels to FP6 Reimbursement according to actual audited costs at the end But limited to the maximum amount specified in the contract – based on initial estimated costs