Tamara Sumner and Mike Wright of KMi were recently invited to give a talk to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s (UCAR) Office of Programs (UOP) in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. Over a morning and part of an afternoon, an enthusiastic audience were delighted to hear about The Open University, and the research projects being persued in KMi. As a resource centre for institutions conducting atmopsheric science education and research in North America, they were very interested in the resource based approaches of The Open University.

The (UOP) has a number of projects developing and distributing multi-media educational software and weather data for use by member institutions. Some programs such as Unidata have been using the Internet for a number of years for the distribution of data and resources to higher education. The UOP also manages oportunities for visiting scientists, graduate and postdoctoral research, and training fellowships with visitors from around the world.

The University Corporation for Atomspheric Research (UCAR), headquartered in Boulder, is an organisation created and governed by 57 U.S. and Canadian universities. It undertakes research in many aspects of the atmospheric sciences in addition to running the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

While the visit hasn’t stopped the summer rains in Milton Keynes, it has heightened awareness of The Open University and KMi in a large research organisation.