Nat’l Post: With a key Arctic research project set to close in 2018, the Trudeau government ponders next steps

As the National Post reports:

As the Trudeau government begins to set its 2017 budget priorities, the country’s 1,000-strong community of Arctic researchers is hoping to secure new funding for a key research network that will otherwise be forced to wind down in 2018….

“(ArcticNet) has not only been useful, it has been outstanding,” said David Barber, a professor in the department of environment and geography at the University of Manitoba who holds a Canada Research Chair in Arctic system science. “It’s really revolutionized how we do collaborative research in the North.”

Barber and other researchers got together about eight months ago in Winnipeg to talk about ArcticNet’s future.

“What do we do? How do we move forward as a community? How do we look to find a replacement for the functionality that is ArcticNet? And we’re struggling with it because there really is no logical avenue for which to move forward,” Barber said in a telephone interview Friday. “There’s no program we can write an application for that will replace it. There needs to be some kind of movement at the federal level.”