Collaborative Research: Fostering Collaborative, Inerdisciplinary Relationships Among the "New Generation" of Polar Researchers Participating in the IPY

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The goal of the Next Generation Polar Research (NGPR) Symposium is to bring together past, current, and "new" polar investigators from diverse natural, physical and social science disciplines and to cultivate crossdisciplinary interactions during the International Polar Year 2007 (IPY). This will provide the new generation with a common sense of history and purpose, increase their understanding of each others' work, give them insights for conveying the essence of polar regions and their particular research beyond academia, and promote connections among research during IPY and in the years ahead. The net result will be a cadre of scientists prepared to carry on the IPY tradition and better equipped to handle pressing science questions of today and tomorrow, and a set of collegial connections that can flourish over their professional lifetimes. This proposal supports the NGPR symposium that builds on the success of 8 DIALOG symposia held between 1994 and 2005 plus the positive evaluations from the 2003 and 2006 DISCCRS symposia. It also incorporates recommendations from an October, 2003 workshop funded through NSF's Biocomplexity in the Environment initiative. The workshop brought together a group of recent interdisciplinary Ph.D. graduates, top scholars working on interdisciplinary research, and directors of leadership training programs to identify ways to foster interactions across the natural-social-science divide. This project is part of a suite of projects to involve new polar investigators in polar science during IPY 2007.