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ALADIN
High Resolution Numerical Weather Prediction Project
Website of the ALADIN Consortium
Latest statistics on the ALADIN manpower, December 2017
Article published on 7 December 2017

by Patricia

Each quarter, the LTMs register the work done in their NMS by their local staff or their visitors during scientific and technical visits or training courses.
The reporting distinguishes 3 types of work :

  • direct work potentially beneficial to all Partners,
  • maintenance of local applications,
  • development of interfaces to other applications or for the forecasters with expected/reported feedback),

and different types of activities :

  • training,
  • development,
  • validation,
  • maintenance,
  • operational,
  • administration&networking and
  • tuition.

The ALADIN manpower database keeps these data since 1991 and extensive statistics are regularly produced. The accumulated data since 1991 may give a distorted view for last countries to join ALADIN. Thus, together with a summary of the statistics since 1991 -with data until 1/1/2017- statistics over the last 2 years (during MoU5) were also presented at the 22nd ALADIN General Assembly in November 2017. Below are more comprehensive figures :

  • the accumulated manpower investment between 1991 and 2015 (see the Annex I of MoU52) is equivalent to 51.4 F.T.E. per year in average ; it reaches 90 F.T.E. per year since 2016;

  • 84% of the total work was realized by the local permanent staffs in their NMSs, but the mobility shows a long-term decrease (below 5% during the last years), the emphasis being lately put on “virtual mobility†through tele-, web- or video-conferencing and remote work.

  • most of the reported work (around 80%) concerns R&D activities and direct work; a constant

  • The phasing effort in Toulouse varies greatly withing the Partners but the few partners who have participated in the recent years have sent well trained and skilled staff to Phasing, enabling to build solid and efficient phaser teams to help on the Toulouse code updates.

  • the split of the accumulated manpower gives a roughly balanced share between the three components of ALADIN (1/3 LACE, 1/3 MF, 1/3 flat-rate Partners), although the distribution of the manpower among the 3 main componentsevolved during the different MoUs periods.

  • The commitments by the Partners to the RWP2018 are also given for comparison (even if the scope of the RWP and of the manpower reporting are not currently exactly the same). A similar graphic is tentatively produced including HIRLAM commitments to the RWP2018 and roughly shows the committed manpower is ¼ by HIRLAM Partners, ¾ by ALADIN Partners.|