THE NERC MST RADAR FACILITY AT ABERYSTWYTH
In general, data from the NERC MST Radar Facility at Aberystwyth will be made freely available to anyone requiring them for academic research, or educational projects, subject to the following conditions.
Anyone requiring the data for commercial purposes should contact the NERC MST Radar Facility Project Scientist for further details. Charges will apply.
The remit of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is to fund world-class science which increases knowledge and understanding of the natural world. This includes funding facilities such as the MST Radar Facility at Aberystwyth. The provision of data from such facilities is therefore equivalent to the allocation of NERC resources. Consequently each application for access to the data - which is referred to as a Supporting Scientific Case (SSC) - will be peer-reviewed by members of the NERC Atmospheric Radar Facilities Steering Committee (NARFSC). This process ensures that NERC resources - including the time of Facility staff - are being allocated in the best possible way. It does not affect the timing of data access being granted, which will typically occur within a day of an SSC being submitted.
- Non-NERC-funded projects/data-users. NERC does not restrict data
access to members of its designated community, i.e. to researchers and PhD
students who are funded by its grants. However, in general, it expects
only limited Facility staff time to be dedicated to supporting non-NERC
projects. Higher levels of support may be deemed to be appropriate for
projects whose scope clearly falls within NERC's science
remit.
- Non-UK-based projects/data-users. In order for NERC to gain the appropriate credit for supporting non-UK-based science, it is necessary for publications making use of data from the Facility to include a UK-based co-author. If the project does not have a UK-based collaborator who can fulfil this role, the Facility's Project Scientist must be included as a co-author (and also as the Principal Investigator - see next point).
- All projects must have a Principal Investigator (PI) who is eligible for a NERC grant. In summary, this is someone who is permanently employed by a UK-based research organisation (e.g. a Higher Education Institution or a Research Council) at lecturer level, at an equivalent level, or above. It does not have to be someone who is actually in receipt of a NERC grant. Since the PI is the person to whom NERC resources are effectively being allocated, it is important that they give their consent for an application to be made in their name.
- Non-UK-based projects/data-users. In order for NERC to gain the appropriate credit for supporting non-UK-based science, it is necessary for publications making use of data from the Facility to include a UK-based co-author. If the project does not have a UK-based collaborator who can fulfil this role, the Facility's Project Scientist must be included as a co-author (and also as the Principal Investigator - see next point).
PURPOSE OF USE
Access to data from the Facility, through the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC), will be granted in connection with a specific, non-commercial project. The data may only be used for the purposes of this project. A separate SSC should be submitted for each additional project which requires access to the data.
OWNERSHIP
The data remain the property of the appropriate funding body, i.e. NERC except in the case of the GPS Integrated water vapour data and boundary-layer wind-profiler data (Met Office), and the cloud radar data (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Millimetre-Wave Technology Group). The data may not be passed on to any third party.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DATASET CITATION
Where the data are used in a presentation or publication, an appropriate acknowledgement must be given:
- In the case of data from NERC instruments - i.e. the MST Radar,
the surface meteorological sensors, the surface wind sensors, the laser
ceilometer, and the sky camera - a sentence should be included along the lines
of, "The MST Radar Facility at Aberystwyth is funded by the UK Natural
Environment Research Council and the data are provided through the British
Atmospheric Data Centre"
- In the case of data from Met Office instruments - i.e. the boundary-layer wind-profiler or GPS water-vapour receiver - a sentence should be given along the lines of, "Data from the boundary-layer wind-profiler/GPS water-vapour receiver are provided courtesy of the Met Office through the British Atmospheric Data Centre."
- In the case of data from the RAL cloud radar, a sentence should be given along the lines of - "Data from the cloud radar are provided courtesy of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Millimetre-Wave Technology Group through the British Atmospheric Data Centre."
- In the case of data from Met Office instruments - i.e. the boundary-layer wind-profiler or GPS water-vapour receiver - a sentence should be given along the lines of, "Data from the boundary-layer wind-profiler/GPS water-vapour receiver are provided courtesy of the Met Office through the British Atmospheric Data Centre."
- Natural Environment Research Council (Year-of-citation)
NERC (Year-of-citation)
- Natural Environment Research Council, Aberystwyth Radar Facility,
[Hooper, D.]. The NERC Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) Radar
Facility at Aberystwyth, [Internet]. British Atmospheric Data Centre, 2006-,
Date-of-citation. Available from
http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/data/mst.
DATA PROTECTION ACT
The Facility will make details of its registered data users, and of their projects, available to NERC and its delegated authorities. The latter include staff of the British Atmospheric Data Centre (BADC) and members of the NERC Atmospheric Radar Facilities Steering Committee (NARFSC). This allows NERC to establish whether or not the Facility continues to be a necessary and effective component for supporting research within its science remit.
The details of publications making use of data from the Facility will be made publicly available, e.g. on the Facility's website.
Limited details of current and recently-completed projects may be given in the Facility's annual reports to NERC, which are publicly available.
PROJECT UPDATES
Registered data users are obliged to provide the Facility with the following
updates whenever they are requested to do so (typically once a year)
- Details of publications which make use of data from the Facility,
including data from guest instruments which have been operated at the
radar site. This information will typically be requested at the beginning
of a calendar year, so that all publications from the previous
calendar year are captured.
Details of data use. This information will typically be requested towards the end of each financial year and should cover the whole of that financial year, i.e. the period between April and the following March. It does not need to be very long or very detailed - a single paragraph should suffice. It just needs to give an indication of progress with the project.
Details of how to apply for access to the data can be found here.