UPDATE  –  10-Jul-2006

Following the proposal call detailed below, twenty Letters of Intent were received by the deadline of 3-Jul-2006. PIs will be contacted shortly with acknowledgement.

Note from the UKIRT Board, April 2006

One outcome of the recent review of UKIRT by an international panel chaired by Prof. R. Ellis was the recommendation that proposals be invited for ambitious observing campaigns to address fundamental high impact science questions.  In this context, the UKIRT Board invites proposals for substantial and ambitious programmes. Proposed programs could have total durations of 3 – 5 years and require tens to hundreds of nights.

This invitation is extended to all parts of the UK community, and is intended to include any proposals which are well beyond the scope of a PATT allocation.

Such a programme could make use of existing UKIRT facilities (WFCAM, CGS4, UIST, UFTI, IRPOL), or may require the development of new instrumentation.

UKIRT has already moved to a mode of operation where a substantial amount of time is devoted to large campaigns.  The first examples of these are the five surveys being undertaken by the UKIDSS consortium (http://www.ukidss.org).  The UKIDSS end-of-two-year review will be included in the review process which follows this call.

The criteria against which proposals will be judged include:

• scientific impact
• management strategy and organisation
• legacy potential

Letters of intent should be sent by 3 July 2006, by email, as pdf files, to Dr Deborah Telfer deborah.telfer@pparc.ac.uk.  Submission of full proposals will be by 3 November 2006, also to Dr Telfer.

The letters of intent should be short (not more than two paragraphs) and outline the basic idea. These letters will be used by the UKIRT Board to assess the level of interest in the community in different areas of science and instrumentation and to guide the Board in identifying referees for the full proposals.

The full proposals should comprise:

• one page for title, abstract and team
• up to nine pages of scientific justification, including figures and references, and technical justification
• one page to describe management and resourcing plans, including anticipated observing support
• one page to describe and justify the legacy potential of the campaign
• proposals which require new instrumentation should include up to six additional pages describing the instrument concept

We are particularly interested in proposals for instruments which give UKIRT a unique measurement capability.

Peer review of the proposals will be undertaken by expert referees who may be outside the UK.  These referees will assess the scientific goals, feasibility, legacy potential and organisational plans.