NEON Design Consortium Funded Posted by: Admin on Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - 03:34 PM The Cooperative Agreement between the National Science Foundation and the American Institute of Biological Sciences under which the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will be planned, designed and budgeted is now in place. Please see http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/newsroom/pr.cfm?ni=15100000000112 and http://www.neoninc.org The NEON visioning process is community-based and is structured around working committees and subcommittees. While the leadership of these committees has been partly established, the committee membership will be drawn from the broader community. ESA members are encouraged to make committee nominations, including self-nominations, using the electronic nomination form on the website www.neoninc.org. Three major meetings are planned for the first half of 2005 (January 3-7, March 14-18 and June 6-10). It is essential that committee members attend all three meetings; substitutions and the back-tracking that results cannot be entertained. The NEON project will cover expenses and provide an honorarium for service. Colleagues who cannot fully commit to the extensive work that will be required to bring NEON to fruition are encouraged to review the documents generated during the NEON design process and provide council. In addition, graduate students should also plan to join in this vetting process as NEON will serve their careers for at least the next three decades. The new, interactive website, http://www.neoninc.org, serves as the nexus of NEON activity on the web. A document entitled "The NEON Design Process," lays out the upcoming process, including the summary and project description sections of the project proposal. Electronic committee nomination forms, current job openings at the NEON Project Office, as well as announcements and other resources are also on this website. -- This information provided by NEONinc.org