As the only airborne cloud research platform holder in Eastern Europe, INCAS is in the perfect position to be a well-known R&D organisation that obtain urgently needed data sets, process and interpret them in order to improve future climate projections. However, to date, a lack of presenting these capabilities has left INCAS too little known in the cloud research community and therefore, underutilized research partner with excellent and very useful facilities. Through the BRACE-MY project, INCAS team will obtain the required skills and an additional equipment needed to complement their research capabilities with state-of-the art aerosol sampling techniques. The foreseen research, conducted in conjunction with strong twinning activities will transfer the skills required for INCAS to perform aerosol-cloud interaction research and elevate its reputation to that of a leader in the cloud and aerosol community. This will be achieved by using a “learning by doing” approach to transfer the best practices for conducting research, disseminating results and educating young scientists from the world-class project partners to INCAS. In particular, this will include: the development of an ice nucleating particle counter based on a state-of-the-art aerosol sampling system provided by a project partner, conducting research flights, publishing and presenting research results within internationally recognized platforms, organizing and lecturing at summer schools designed for upcoming researcher in the field and gaining the managerial skills required to become a recognized partner for aerosol and cloud microphysics research. The project partners have been selected to ensure that all of the objectives are guided by leaders in the field of aerosol and cloud research and acting as a research provider. Therefore, BRACE-MY will give INCAS, a research institute in a “widening country”, the opportunity to elevate itself to an internationally recognized cloud and aerosol research institute.
The general objective of the BRACE-MY proposal is to enhance the research and technological capacities and capabilities of the Environmental Research Programme of INCAS together with its science management skills and obtain a reputation of excellence at the European level. BRACE-MY will influence the entire institute staff through their activities supporting the proposed research activities and lead to a better organisation of activities. The general objective will be achieved by involving INCAS in high-level research activities addressing atmospheric research “hotspots” with a global impact, together with international partners that are complemented by specific twinning activities.
This set of activities are interlinked and organized through three layers: a. joint research&innovation activities – MAIN BLOCK (WP 1) – together with and under the scientific coordination of UiO, ASP and TROPOS, and b. twining activities
TWIN BLOCK (WP 2 and WP 3) – exchange of research staff, summer schools, drafting research articles, etc. which are subsequent and related activities, gravitating around MAIN R&I. c. management activities
ADMIN BLOCK (WP 4 and WP 5) – the transfer of best practices for science management and IPR exploitation. Each partner (UiO, TROPOS, ASP) will contribute to WPs according to their competence and skills. The MAIN, TWIN and ADMIN BLOCKS are assembled in a coherent manner, and will be carried out in a synergistic way for an effective transfer of expertise and experience from Norwegian and German partners to INCAS.
This project builds upon an existing research partnership between INCAS and the Norwegian partners within the ICESAFARI1 project, where the consortium is developing a smart sensor for UAVs and a holographic cloud imager, with a strong focus on innovation-based fundamental science. The scientific topics selected to be addressed in MAIN BLOCK are in full compliance with the ongoing Strategic Development Plan of INCAS2 (see references to CAART3 and ATMOSLAB4 – the operations centre and aircrafts fleet used for atmospheric and climate change research). The MAIN BLOCK is focused on research activities, which will support the Green Deal efforts in Europe to mitigate the effects of climate change, where the current lack of knowledge and understanding culminate in an urgent need of data sets from different cloud types.
