ANNOUNCEMENT
2ND MEETING OF IFAECI (UMI 3351):  " Grant Proposal Start-Up Workshop "

We are pleased to announce that the 2nd meeting of IFAECI will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, between April 25th and 27th, 2011.

The meeting is intended to progress in the scientific collaboration between Argentinean and French scientists in the frame of the IFAECI agenda. IFAECI (Instituto Franco-Argentino sobre Estudios de Clima y sus Impactos) is an international mixed unit (UMI 3351), jointly sponsored by CNRS, CONICET and University of Buenos Aires. In that sense, we would like to contact all the persons that are already involved in active French-Argentina collaborations on IFAECI related scientific subjects, or that would be interested on building up new collaborations. IFAECI will directly fund travel and local accommodation expenses for 6 to 10 researchers in France who want to actively participate in this Workshop. Also, arrangements are currently being done in order to provide support by local sources to those Argentinean colleagues traveling to Buenos Aires.

The main objective of the meeting is to startup a series of grant proposals to be submitted during 2011-2012. The research projects would aim typically at ANR (Agence Nationale de la Recherche) calls, but also potentially at other funding opportunities available in France (LEFE, CNRS Doc and Post-Doc fundings, etc), Argentina (MINCyT, etc) and French/Argentinean bilateral programs. A more detailed note summarizing the main funding opportunities identified as relevant as well as their respective timing and scope, will be sent out shortly.

The conclusions of the previous IFAECI meeting show that there are good possibilities to plan projects on several issues, like Climate change in South America; Numerical modeling of regional climate; Southern Hemisphere stratosphere; Orography and Climate: the case of the Andes; Cloud radiations and Feedbacks; South Atlantic and coastal oceanography, etc. Therefore, this second meeting will be very important to consolidate the list of topics as well as to progress in the planning to build-up ambitious and innovative funding projects.

The tentative Agenda for the meeting is as follows:

1rst day:
Scientific presentations on subjects belonging to IFAECI scientific prospective (Participants are invited to suggest presentations; talks that are based on current or possible future Argentinean-French collaboration are encouraged.). Additional presentations on main funding opportunities identified as relevant, their respective timing and evaluation criteria.

2nd day:
Series of talks concentrated on the state of the art and prospective of the specific scientific areas in which proposals would be embedded (TBD soon). Knowledge sharing on best practices for grant proposal elaboration. Targeting of grant proposals and constitution of corresponding working groups.

3rd day:
Working group sessions to initiate up grant proposals (to sketch their scope, extent and structure; to plan ahead next steps for timely preparation).

We look forward to see all of you in Buenos Aires

Meeting Organizing Committee: Carolina Vera, Francoise Lott, Claudia Simionato, Alexis Hannart.