Report from the University Relations Committee by Steven Businger North Carolina State University at Raleigh The spring meeting of the UCAR University Relations Committee (URC) was held 28-29 April, in Washington, D.C. Meeting in Washington increased the opportunity for the URC to interact with project officers from the National Science Foundation (NSF), who are experiencing very tight travel budgets. This venue also allowed Ronald McPherson, director of the National Meteorological Center (NMC), to address the committee. The following is a brief summary of the highlights of the meeting. President's report UCAR president Richard Anthes announced that the blue-ribbon panel review of the five-year UCAR-NSF cooperative agreement for the management of NCAR was very positive, and a recommendation to enter into a new agreement went to the National Science Board in May. Anthes introduced Radford Byerly, a noted expert in science policy, whose appointment as UCAR vice president and director of the Walter Orr Roberts Institute was approved by the trustees in April. Byerly gave a brief overview of the tasks and challenges that lie before him. The committee was impressed with him and his experienced approach to Congress, and looks forward to hearing from him again during the fall URC meeting. Tom Wigley, the new director of the UCAR Office for Interdisciplinary Earth Studies, has arrived in Boulder, Colorado. His appointment is a shared one with NCAR. A proposal to NSF, to put a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver on a low-earth-orbit communications satellite, from the University Navstar Consortium with collaboration from university scientists, has received favorable reviews. Data from this receiver will be used to perform limb scans of the earthÕs atmosphere, from which temperature or humidity information can be deduced by analysis of the refractivity of the atmosphere. With the end of the cold war, the Department of Defense (DOD) is looking to apply military technology to other than defense-related needs. Money (about one billion dollars) is being made available through the Advanced Research Projects Agency. A small percentage of this will be available to the atmospheric sciences. With the increased interest in environmental sciences, a number of scientists with excellent credentials in other fields are interested in retraining in the atmospheric sciences. Anthes also reported an improved climate for the U.S. Weather Research Program, noting that the upper-level management of both NSF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have expressed strong support for the program. National Meteorological Center McPherson gave the committee an overview of the visiting scientist program at NMC, which is managed by the UCAR Office of Programs. He stated that the program is very vigorous and successful, and as hoped, has increased interactions between academic and operational scientists. He added that sabbatical possibilities exist in both numerical weather prediction and climate. He also briefed the committee on NMCÕs future directions with the National Weather Service modernization. NMCÕs charge has gradually been changing to encompass climate and ocean predictions, and eventually environmental forecasting, as well. National Science Foundation Richard Greenfield, the new director of the NSF Atmospheric Sciences Division (ATM), told the committee that this was a defining moment for the atmospheric sciences in that new leadership affords the opportunity to redefine relationships among UCAR, NCAR, NSF, and the university community. Greenfield expressed the desire for NSF/ATM, UCAR, and NCAR to collaborate closely in developing integrated plans and for increased interactions between NSF and NCAR. In the past, the review of NCAR programs was carried out by a committee appointed by the UCAR members. Under the new cooperative agreement, NSF will administer the program reviews. This development was met with approbation by the URC. Greenfield envisions a stronger partnership (as opposed to oversight) encompassing universities, NSF, and UCAR in developing plans and executing them. With flat budgets, Greenfield posed the question: How do you strike a balance between science and facilities support? Since NSF supports a number of facilities in the community, planning must take into account the needs of all the facilities. Report from the director of NCAR Robert Serafin reported that in the wake of the loss of Clinton's proposed supplementary budget, NCAR's FY 93 funding is essentially the same as FY 92Ñ$49.45 million. NCAR programs will be affected as a result. Serafin also reported that the Electra Doppler radar had successfully taken data during the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere Program Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment. A new CRAY-3, and access to several massively parallel processor computers in Boulder, leaves the computing needs in fair shape for now. However, Serafin cautioned that long-term needs will not be met by these facilities. NSF continues to be committed to adding a Gulfstream-IV aircraft to the NCAR fleet. A C-130 from the DOD will be transferred to NCAR; spare parts, which had been of concern, are available. Non-NSF funding Progress continues on this important issue. The new criteria that NCAR proposals must meet (listed in the NovemberÐDecember UCAR Newsletter) are critical to evolving perceptions of competition. Possible modifications to the criteria were discussed at the spring meeting, but no formal recommendations were made. Instead, it was decided that a subcommittee composed of Dale Haidvogel (Rutgers University), George Young (Pennsylvania State University), and Harold Orville (South Dakota School of Mines and Technology) would review a subset of approved non-NSF-funded proposals to gauge the effectiveness of the new criteria. They will meet in Boulder in September and will report to the URC during its fall meeting in Boulder, 8Ð9 November. 1993 Members Meeting Anthes appointed a subcommittee to help define the format and agenda of the members meeting in October. One of the goals of the subcommittee will be to promote active involvement of the membersÕ representatives in issues pertaining to the health of the research university community, and in particular, how the universities might respond to changing external conditions. The subcommittee includes Marsha Baker (University of Washington), Harriet Barker (UCAR vice president for corporate affairs), Steven Businger (ex officio), Edward Zipser (Texas A&M University), Robert Gall (director of NCARÕs Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division), Ellen Mosley- Thompson (Ohio State University), and Timothy Spangler (subcommittee chairman and director of UCARÕs Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and Training). For further details on the meeting or other issues related to the URC, please contact Steven Businger.