GEO Mountains Small Grants Programme 2023

GEO Mountains is launching a new small grants call for projects that explicitly explore mountain monitoring, data, and information.

GEO Mountains is an Initiative of the Group on Earth Observations that aims to bring together research institutions and mountain observation networks to enhance the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of a wide range of relevant data and information – both in situ and remotely sensed – pertaining to environmental and socio-economic systems across global mountain regions. In doing so, it hopes to help facilitate scientific advancements and support practitioners and decision makers at local, national, and regional levels.

In this context, and thanks to support from the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC) via the Adaptation at Altitude Programme, we are launching a small grants call for projects that explicitly explore mountain monitoring, data, and information, with priority given to those focused on the following mountain regions: Andes, Central Asia, East Africa, the Caucasus, and Hindu Kush Himalaya. Depending on the quality and merit of the proposed projects, we expect to support up to two projects per region, with up to CHF 10,000 available per project. Typical project duration should be up to 6 months, and all projects should conclude no later than 31 December 2023. The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of the types of projects that could be supported:

The development of databases and other tools to describe, visualise, access, and/or apply geospatial datasets corresponding to mountain regions
Mountain data rescue or digitisation projects
The curation and preparation of novel mountain datasets for publication or sharing online and/or in peer-reviewed data journals (e.g. ESSD, Scientific Data)
Mountain data evaluation or inter-comparison projects
The integration of various types of mountain data with data-driven or physics-based numerical models to answer key scientific, practical, or policy-relevant questions
Education, training, or capacity development activities related to the data lifecycle (including campaign planning, infrastructure installation, data collection, data transmission, quality assurance, documentation, storage, and sharing), potentially as a contribution from GEO Mountains to the MRI’s Mountain Observatories or UHOP efforts.

Some potentially useful existing resources that could be built upon are listed in / accessible via the GEO Mountains General and In Situ Data Inventories. Others include datasets and resources made available via the GEO Knowledge Hub and GEOSS, as well as by other GEO Work Programme Activities. All projects should follow the principles of Open Science to the greatest extent possible. Further details on the call’s scope, general eligibility, and associated funding conditions are provided in the Annex.

Proposals must be submitted via this online submission form. Please ensure all the requested information is provided, as incomplete submissions will not be evaluated. Deadline for proposals: 30 April 2023, midnight (23:59) CEST

Please note that the present call is not primarily intended to support equipment / instrumental costs (although a future call might).

Key dates and milestones: