Other relevant organizations

The Governor of Svalbard

The Governor of Svalbard is both Chief of Police and has the same authority as a County Governor on mainland Norway. The Governor is also the principal environmental protection authority in Svalbard. The Environmental Protection Department is responsible for:

• Nature supervision and environmental monitoring
• Safeguarding the environmental aspects of planning and construction, business enterprises and interventions in nature
• Management of protected areas, flora and fauna
• Oil spill preparedness, pollution control and waste disposal
• Registration, monitoring and maintenance of cultural heritage sites
• Control of import and export of animals and registration of domestic animals

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS)

SIOS is an international observing system for measurements on and around Svalbard addressing Earth System Science questions. Important components of SIOS include:

• The observing system
• The knowledge centre
• The working groups
• The SIOS consortium
• SIOS data access point
• SIOS open calls and opportunities
• SIOS e-learning platform
• SIOS observation facility catalogue

Svalbard Science Forum (SSF)

Svalbard Science Forum was established by The Norwegian Research Council to promote coordination of research activities on Svalbard, to provide integrated and easily accessible information about research currently ongoing on Svalbard, and to expand and strengthen collaboration between individual researchers and research institutions – both Norwegian and foreign – that are involved in research activities on Svalbard. The forum serves as a coordination and advisory body for actors engaged in research activities on Svalbard.

The SSF secretariat administers seed money from the Research Council of Norway through two funding programmes.

• Svalbard Strategic Grant (SSG): aims at establishing new collaborative research networks on Svalbard, developing existing networks, increasing mobility between research communities on Svalbard, and making research data more accessible.
• Arctic Field Grant (AFG): awarded to students and researchers and covers additional costs for conducting field work on Svalbard and Jan Mayen.

Both of these programs have application deadlines annually.