Antarctica
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| Chinstrap Penguins. Credit: Sven Lindblad |
The Tinker Foundation’s interest in Antarctica dates from the early 1980’s when its first grants supported Latin American participation in the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings. Subsequent grants over the years have funded a broad range of projects including scientific research by both Latin American and United States scientists, international meetings on the various protocols to the Antarctic Treaty, publication of books on Treaty policy issues and general educational and outreach projects on the South Pole. Organizations receiving support for work on Antarctica may be based in any country.
In 2009 the Tinker Foundation established the Martha T. Muse Prize for Science and Policy in Antarctica. This annual award, created to honor the Foundation’s former president and chairman, recognizes the accomplishments of a mid-career person working on Antarctica and is funded at $100,000. (This award process is administered independently by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, see http://www.museprize.org for details.) Funding priority is given to the Prize. If additional support is available other Antarctica-related projects will be considered.
Today the Foundation’s support for Antarctic-related projects continues to be broadly defined. Projects covering research, publications, education, outreach, conferences are all eligible for consideration. As noted above, however, funding for this program area is extremely limited. A letter of inquiry is strongly suggested to determine the potential of support.
