The North American Program in Radio Astronomy and the CFI

Russ Taylor

Canadian access to ALMA is provided through an agreement between Canada and the United States, signed by Dr. Arthur Carty for Canada and Dr. Ricardo Giacconi, President of the U.S. Associated Universities Inc.  This agreement is a memorandum of understanding for a North American Program in Radio Astronomy (NAPRA), and provides for Canadian scientists to have the same rights of access to ALMA  (and all facilities operated by the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory) as U.S. scientists.  In effect, Canada and the U.S. form a North American partnership in ALMA and Canadian scientists secure competitive access to the North American fraction of the observing time on ALMA.   

Under the terms of NAPRA and the ALMA partnership, Canada has an obligation to provide:

  1. An in-kind contribution to ALMA construction
  2. a contribution for the common costs of ALMA site development – sometimes referred to as the ALMA access fee, and
  3. a next-generation correlator for the Extended VLA project

In 2002, when the Canadian Coalition for Astronomy engaged in an extensive lobbying campaign to fund the LRP, we were directed, by officials in both the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry, to attempt to obtain part of the funding for ALMA from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation.  As a result, a proposal to the CFI was developed entitled “Canadian Participation in the North American Program in Radio Astronomy”.  The proposal requested funds for the ALMA access fee and the EVLA correlator.  The proposal was submitted through the University of Calgary in partnership with NRC and a group of Canadian Universities. NRC committed to providing the ALMA in-kind contribution and the operating costs of Canadian participation in ALMA.  The CFI proposal was partially successful.  The ALMA access fee was awarded.  However, because the EVLA correlator would be constructed at the NRC facility at DRAO, the CFI eventually ruled that it was ineligible for CFI funds.   The award was made “conditional upon the applicants providing satisfactory assurance that this level of funding will guarantee adequate access for Canadian based researchers in universities and colleges.”

This was the situation, as of summer 2002.  Since this decision left a major short-fall in the conditions required to meet the Canadian obligation to NAPRA, i.e. the EVLA correlator, we could not satisfy the CFI conditions.  The funding for the EVLA correlator needed to be secured.   Since last summer, the Canadian Coalition for Astronomy has been working with the NRC to develop a revised funding scenario, and to lobby the government for the additional funding to meet the NAPRA obligation.  As part of the revised funding plan, the CFI was approached to augment the award by funding the Canadian ALMA software development tasks. This software development would be carried out at the University of Calgary under joint management with McMaster University, and oversight from the larger university community.   Over the past fall and winter, the Canadian Coalition lobbied MP’s and government officials to secure remaining funds for NAPRA.  At the same time, Dr. Carty and our colleagues at HIA worked on the same goal within the government.  The end result was an announcement in the Federal Budget last month of additional funding to NRC to “secure Canada's participation in leading-edge astronomy projects, including the Extended Very Large Array project in New Mexico and the Atacama Large Millimetre Array project in Chile."

The funding provided by this announcement will allow the conditions on the CFI award to be met.   We have been asked by the CFI to produce a detailed budget for the award, including both the access fee and the software development project.  There are still loose ends to be tied up, but I hope that we will soon be able to announce that funding for all elements of the NAPRA agreement are in place.