Call for Spring 2025 US CLIVAR-Supported Meetings

Requests due May 13, 2024

This document describes the purpose and successes of US CLIVAR-sponsored meetings (including workshops, conferences, and training programs) and specifies the steps in requesting support. We encourage the US ocean and climate science community and collaborators to submit requests for workshops to be held no earlier than January 2025, unless otherwise justified.

Meeting Purpose 

The US CLIVAR program annually sponsors workshops and other meetings of scientists to coordinate, develop, plan, and implement new or focused activities for the benefit of the scientific community including US CLIVAR. Workshops should aim to assess the state of knowledge, identify gaps, and discuss needs for future research directions and opportunities for possible scientific activities within the community. They may be national or international in scope and participation, although for workshops held outside the US, sponsorship will be limited and available only for travel of US scientists and students. Workshops also provide an important opportunity for early career scientists and students to showcase their work, participate in community planning, and network with colleagues in their field and across disciplines.

Upcoming and Recent Meetings

The 2023-2024 US CLIVAR-sponsored meetings resulting from successful requests are listed below.

• Micro2Macro: Origins of Climate Change Uncertainty Workshop
• Optimizing Ocean Observing Networks for Detecting the Coastal Climate Signal Workshop
• Ocean Uncertainty Quantification Summer School
• Pathways Connecting Climate Changes to the Deep Ocean: Tracing Physical, Biogeochemical, and Ecological Signals From the Surface to Deep Sea Workshop
• Blocking and Extreme Weather in a Changing Climate Workshop
• Workshop on Confronting Earth System Model Trends with Observations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Polar Amplification of Climate Change Across Hemispheres and Seasons: Causes and Constraints Workshop
• WCRP Open Science Conference
• ICTP/CLIVAR Summer School on Marine Heatwaves: Global Phenomena with Regional Impacts
• Workshop on Meeting AMOC Observation Needs in a Changing Climate

Description and Guidelines

US CLIVAR sponsors scientific workshops, conferences, and meetings to advance its goals through funding provided by the US CLIVAR Inter-Agency Group (IAG), comprised of agency program managers at five US funding agencies: NASA, NOAA, NSF, DOE, and ONR.  

Requests are considered twice a year (spring and fall). Funding for workshop support is limited and priority is given to efforts that demonstrate high relevance and payoff for US CLIVAR investment. Organizers seeking funding should review the goals and objectives of the US CLIVAR program provided in the Science Plan. Strategically focused workshops are of the highest interest to agency sponsors, specifically ones that make a case for moving the science forward.

The semi-annual calls for workshops provide scientists the opportunity to have their requests simultaneously considered by all five US CLIVAR participating agencies. This approach allows agencies to collectively consider needs and interests within the community and to coordinate possible interagency support. Therefore, workshops should be of sufficient scope to interest multiple agencies and programs.

US CLIVAR’s goals include fostering collaborations (1) among Earth system science communities to advance the understanding of the ocean’s role in climate and its interaction with other elements of the Earth system and (2) with operational communities that develop and use climate information. For workshops addressing interdisciplinary topics, with anticipated participation of scientists from multiple disciplines (e.g., other Earth system or operational communities), the organizers are encouraged to identify and submit companion requests for support to other sponsoring programs. In such cases, the organizing committee membership and preliminary invited speaker list should reflect the interdisciplinary expertise required.

Meetings can be held as hybrid (in-person and virtual) or fully virtual. The US CLIVAR Project Office has years of experience organizing fully integrated hybrid meetings that enable seamless participation of both in person and virtual participants. Hybrid and virtual approaches allow remote participants to engage while avoiding logistical costs, travel time and expense, and the carbon footprint associated with in-person attendance. 

Below are guidelines on how requests should be formulated and submitted to the US CLIVAR Project Office, how they are evaluated, and how funding decisions are determined. 

1. Submit a request for US CLIVAR financial sponsorship for a scientific workshop/meeting/training to the US CLIVAR Project Office. 
2. The US CLIVAR Project Office will forward the request to the IAG for consideration. 
3. If additional information is required to inform IAG consideration, the US CLIVAR Project Office will convey to the organizers on behalf of the IAG, so that the organizers can provide such information or clarification. 
4. The US CLIVAR Project Office will communicate the final IAG decisions to the organizers. 

Preparation and Submissions of Requests

Unless otherwise justified, the proposed meeting dates should be no earlier than January 2025, allowing sufficient time for advertising to the broad community and planning of organizational details.

Prior to submitting, the organizers should contact the Project Office and indicate interest in developing a request, preferably before drafting the request and no later than one week before the due date. The Director will provide initial feedback on the proposal's purpose, scope, and relevance to US CLIVAR and assist in developing the meeting budget, which the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) will administer. The Project Office will also provide guidance and suggested text edits on the draft request.

Priority is given to meetings organized principally by US scientists and held at a venue in the US*. For such domestic meetings, the Project Office will assist the organizers with setting and executing a planning timeline, the workshop webpage on the US CLIVAR website (including the online abstract submission and registration), promoting the event within the community, arranging logistics and providing onsite meeting support, posting presentations online, and editing, publishing, and promoting the workshop summary report. 

For meetings organized by international bodies, such as WCRP or International CLIVAR, priority consideration will be given to those held at a venue in the US. The Project Office will help promote the event within the US community and arrange logistics and travel as approved. Sponsorship for meetings held in the US may include costs for travel of participants (organizers, invited speakers, early career scientists, and students) plus costs for local logistics. For meetings outside the US, sponsorship will be limited and restricted to US participant travel costs.

The request should be no more than ten pages and include the following information:

A description of the meeting (workshop/conference/training):

• Dates, location, and expected size (number of participants)
• Whether the meeting will be hybrid or virtual
• Whether open or by invitation only (with rationale for the latter, as open is preferred)
• Organizers and affiliations (reflecting diversity, e.g., institutions, career stage, gender, and race/ethnicity)
• Meeting objectives (what specifically does the event seek to achieve?)
• Relevance and benefits to US CLIVAR (e.g., how will results contribute to CLIVAR's goals and implementation?)
• Relationship of meeting to other meetings and activities (e.g., how will this meeting build upon findings and recommendations of earlier efforts? How will it inform future activities?)
• Format of the meeting and preliminary draft agenda
• Potential list of invited speakers/participants (also reflecting diversity)
• Deliverables (e.g., meeting report, white paper, or journal article with expected publication dates)
• Approaches to address diversity, equity, and inclusion

A description of the financial request (to be developed with the Project Office):

• Total cost estimate for the meeting (from all sources)
• Itemized budget request for US CLIVAR contribution, providing breakout by cost categories (i.e., materials/supplies, purchased services, travel, overhead)
• Expected registration revenue (based on registration fee rates for general and student/early career/underrepresented participants)
• Description of additional contributing sponsorships (including host institution and/or collaborating programs) that would help defray meeting costs

Diversity, equity, and inclusion, as core values of the US CLIVAR Program, should be reflected throughout the planning and implementation of a US CLIVAR-organized meeting, including in the drafting of the request, the organizing committee membership, and determination of oral and poster presentations at the meeting. Applicants should consider diversity across scientific expertise, institutional affiliation, career stage, gender, race/ethnicity, and other demographic factors. Meeting dates should avoid major religious and cultural holidays. Promotion of the event should include targeting underrepresented groups to engage their awareness and participation. We strongly encourage the inclusion of scientists who are early-career and/or from underrepresented groups as members of the organizing committee and as oral presenters. The meeting budget should include reduced registration fees and travel support opportunities for students, early career scientists, and underrepresented participants, further enabling their participation in the meeting. The Project Office will assist the organizers in addressing and ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the planning and execution of the meeting.

• A template for workshop requests can be downloaded here. 

• Examples of recent successful workshop requests, resulting in full sponsorship by US CLIVAR agencies, are available for download here.

To be eligible for consideration, all requests (in .docx format) must be submitted to the Project Office (uscpo@usclivar.org) by the deadline above. The Project Office will forward the request to the IAG for discussion at the IAG meeting in June, 2024. Decisions and feedback from sponsoring agency program managers will be shared by the Project Office with the organizers soon thereafter. 

Workshops selected for sponsorship are expected to include acknowledgement of US CLIVAR and the sponsoring funding agencies in workshop announcements, meeting materials, and publications. 

Funding agency resources available for workshops are limited, and not all submitted requests are supported. The next call will be issued in fall 2024 for workshops that will take place in fall 2025.

Please contact the Project Office (uscpo@usclivar.org) with any questions regarding the development of a workshop request. 

* Non-US scientists are welcome to participate on organizing committees and as participants.