The SPRI Appeal

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The Scott Polar Research Institute is an international centre for research into the polar regions and is also home to unrivalled resources of polar information and expertise, housing the world’s largest polar library, Britain’s only dedicated polar museum, and a national repository for polar archives that record some of the most memorable episodes in exploration of the Arctic an Antarctic. The Institute’s Archives, Museum and Library provide members of the general public, as well as scientists, government bodies, industry and polar inhabitants with important information on a variety of polar topics, including climate change, management of natural resources and historical polar expeditions. Through both the publication of our research and by public outreach, the Institute helps to educate and inform a worldwide audience about the polar regions.

Now that the project for the redesign and refurbishment of the Institute’s Polar Museum is complete, we turn to further fundraising priorities. We wish to endow academic posts, and especially a Professorship in the field of Polar Environmental Science. We are also working to underpin the future development of the Institute’s Archives and Museum. Our highest priorities in these areas are to provide permanent endowment funding for the important posts of Institute Archivist and Polar Museum Curator. Funding for these positions has until now been supported by a series of short-term grants – an inherently unstable position. We also wish to build up endowment funds for the support of research students at the Institute (now initiated as the Scott Polar Scholarships Fund), and to enable increasingly expensive polar fieldwork to continue to take place on a regular basis.

The generosity of a number of individual donors, together with private trusts and foundations, is gratefully acknowledged. Particular thanks are due to Sir Humphry Wakefield for his continuing support of the Appeal.

Further information on the Appeal is available from the Director, Professor Julian Dowdeswell (director@spri.cam.ac.uk; 01223-336541).