About the Awards
The primary purpose of
the Unidata Community Equipment Awards is to encourage new
members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds in the
geosciences to join the Unidata community, and for existing
members to continue their active participation so as to
enhance the community process. We will accept equipment
proposals from academic institutions engaged in teaching and
research in the geosciences for the deployment of
Unidata-supported systems.
It is the intent of this award program to assist
institutions wishing to participate actively in the Unidata
community; to assist those who have participated actively in
the past but need system upgrades to meet the standards
currently recommended for deploying Unidata systems; and to
assist organizations from disciplines outside of the
atmospheric community who can provide and support important
and relevant datasets and tools to the Unidata community at
no cost.
Small institutions, institutions that have not previously
submitted proposals to this program, and institutions
outside Unidata's traditional atmospheric sciences community
are especially encouraged to apply.
A Brief History of the Awards
For many years the National Science Foundation (NSF)
administered the Unidata Equipment Awards program, which was
initially developed to assist smaller universities with
becoming part of the Unidata community. In 2001, NSF decided
that the program had become too expensive for them to
administer, so with encouragement from the Policy Committee (now the Strategic Advisory Committee)
and User Committee, Unidata proposed to take over the
administration of the Equipment Awards. This included
assembling a panel of community members to review proposals
and make recommendations regarding funding. NSF granted
approval and in 2003 Unidata ran the first competitive
process. Each year Unidata is committed to setting aside
money from core funds to continue the Equipment Awards
program.