Dear PYRN members,

In my quality of president of the International Permafrost Association (IPA), I would like to use the opportunity given to me by the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN) Executive Committee to thank PYRN for its exceptional contribution to the community, to explain the plans of the IPA for the four years to come and to encourage PYRN members to get involved in its activities.

PYRN was originally designed in 2005 by a small group of motivated young people to bring together young researchers involved in permafrost research. The IPA rapidly endorsed the concept and accompanied its progress throughout the years, supporting financially its actions and initiatives. It is with great pleasure that I now measure the long way the network has come, with its more than 600 members and its ongoing projects such as PYRN-TSP or the bibliography PYRN-Bib.

It is, for the IPA, an exciting situation to contemplate the input of so much energy in the realm of permafrost research. It also forces it to adapt its structure to benefit from such input. Already, PYRN was acknowledged during the 19th IPA Council as an “adhering network” and will from now on sit on every IPA Council meeting, starting with the next one to be held during the Third European Conference on Permafrost in 2010. Several working groups of the IPA also took the initiative to include PYRN cochairs to participate and lead their activities.

The IPA is an older organization and was formed in 1983 in Fairbanks during the 4th International Conference on Permafrost. Over this quarter of a century, it has played a major role in developing some products that have now become standard resources for permafrost academics and engineers, namely the map of permafrost and ground ice condition and networks of boreholes and active layer measurements to cite only a few of them. Its activities are primarily conceived by its working parties (Working groups, standing committees and task forces) which bring together researchers to solve targeted issues and/or develop products for the rest of the community.

The rising awareness of the role of permafrost in the global system both in the research community and in the public means that the role of the current young permafrost researchers will be more important than ever. The activities organized by the IPA will therefore need tremendous involvement by young researchers to meet the objectives laid down during the recent International Polar Year and beyond, to answer new research questions. The IPA does provide the international forum needed to grasp these issues in a global context and would like to encourage you warmly to get involved in its activities.

On the newly redesigned website of the IPY (http://ipa-permafrost.org), you will find a range of information related to its ongoing activities. Take a few minutes to check the features of the websites and the structure of the IPA. You might find a common thread to some of your research question and the issues addressed by some of the working groups. You might also find out about a meeting you didn’t know of, or read about a project that provides the data you have been needing to move forward in your own research. You will primarily find contact information for the people involved in shaping the organisation and its products. Working Group and Task Force chairs welcome the involvement of PYRN members in their activities, and it is a unique opportunity for you to get acquainted with the international dimension of permafrost research. I strongly encourage you to get involved in the IPA projects by contactingthem.

To conclude, I would like to thank the PYRN current and former Executive Committee for devoting time and energy to bringing together all of you virtually on the web and physically during its annual workshops. Their dedication is key to the success of PYRN. Your involvement in its activities as well as the ones of the IPA will be decisive to correctly apprehend the fate of permafrost.

Best Regards and see you in 2010 at the Third European Conference on Permafrost in Longyearbyen!

Prof. Hans-Wolfgang Hubberten
President, International Permafrost Association