Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Research

 

The Challenger Society is the UK affiliated body responsible for the UK’s subscription to the international Scientific Committee for Oceanographic Research (SCOR).

SCOR (http://www.scor-int.org/) is the leading international non-governmental organization for the promotion and coordination of international oceanographic activities. SCOR does not fund research directly, but SCOR helps promote international cooperation in planning and conducting oceanographic research, and solving methodological and conceptual problems that hinder research. SCOR also promotes capacity building for marine scientists in developing countries and countries with economies in transition through special efforts to include such scientists in SCOR activities, travel grants, SCOR Visiting Scholars, and joint activities with other organizations.

SCOR presently sponsors five Large Scale Ocean Research Projects: GEOTRACES, IIOE-2, IMBeR, IQOE, and SOLAS (see https://scor-int.org/work/research/ for details)

SCOR also organises and funds a number of working groups to address discreet areas of ocean science requiring international co-ordination. Proposal for new working groups are considered once a year approves new working groups each year at its the annual SCOR meeting. The number of proposals funded each year depends on both the results of the proposal review process and the availability of funding, with 1-3 new proposals typical. SCOR is an organization that promotes science that comes from the “bottom up” from the ocean science community and working groups are an important vehicle to bring attention to the important ocean science issues identified by the global community of ocean scientists

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As a non-governmental organization, individuals representing national SCOR committees, not national governments, are the members of SCOR. The nominated SCOR representatives for the UK for are:
Alessandro Tagliabue (University of Liverpool, chair)
Kerry Howell (University of Plymouth, vice-chair)
Will Homoky (University of Leeds)
Alistair Lough (University of Leeds, ECR representative)
Alice Marzocchi (NOC, ECR representative)
Alex Poulton (Heriot Watt University)
Malcolm Woodward (PML)

The role of the SCOR UK Chair is to represent ensure strong links between SCOR and UK oceanography. This involves:

• Represent SCOR to the Challenger Council, on which they serve in an ex officio capacity, and act as a conduit between the society and SCOR as appropriate
• Annually co-ordinate Challenger Council input to provide a UK ranking and assessment of proposals for new Working Groups to the SCOR meeting
• Organising the rotation of UK SCOR working group members
• Attending the international SCOR meeting each year, or arranging a representative from one of the other nominated UK members to SCOR
• Sending on information from international SCOR to members of the Challenger Society through Challenger Wave
• participating in the meetings of the Royal Society Global Environmental Research Committee (GERC) and providing an annual report to GERC on the activities of the UK in the SCOR arena.

A report of the 2018 International SCOR meeting can be found at https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/university-hosts-global-ocean-science-conference