The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs is an international association, formed in 1988, which facilitates support to Antarctic operations amongst the governmental National Antarctic Programs. Our Membership is thirty-three country programs, representing almost 100% of the science and science support activity in Antarctica. The National Antarctic Programs, our Members, are responsible for delivering and supporting scientific research in the Antarctic Treaty Area on behalf of their respective governments and in the spirit of the Antarctic Treaty. They work collaboratively and individually to ensure data from Antarctica is available to the world.
Projects
COMNAP Projects support our Membership, engage the public, and ensure we are providing best practice advice to the Antarctic Treaty system.
Expert Groups
People within the COMNAP Membership have a depth and breadth of expertise found nowhere else. A fundamental aspect of our organisation is to support the free exchange of information between these experts.
Ambitions
Our Ambitions include caring for the environment, supporting our Members to succeed, and fostering strong community relationships while contributing towards a positive, enduring Antarctic future.
Documents and resources
Over the years, we have worked with our Membership and the wider Antarctic community to produce a range of informative brochures, booklets, books and even the Antarctic Station game. Some of our publications provide guidance to our Members on things like waste management, critical technologies, preventing the introduction of non-native species into the Antarctic environment and how to prevent and respond to oil spills. We are advisors to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCMs) and to the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) through our Permanent Observer status.
News & Events
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Antarctic Organisations Issue Call to Early-Career Persons as Annual Award and Fellowship Applications Open
3 March 2025
The Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) and the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) are calling on early-career persons to apply for this year’s Antarctic Award and Scholarship.
COMNAP and IAATO are each offering an award with funding of up to USD $15,000 for 2024. Both the COMNAP and IAATO schemes enable early-career persons to work with a project team from another country, creating new opportunities and often partnerships that last for many years and over many Antarctic field seasons. The deadline for the COMNAP Early-Career Award and IAATO Antarctic Fellowship applications is 1 June 2025.
Learn more here.
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Save the date - COMNAP Early Career Award
10 February 2025
COMNAP, jointly with IAATO, is thrilled to announce that on 3 March 2025 the two organisations will launch the 2025 Antarctic Early-Career Award and Fellowship Schemes.
The COMNAP Early-Career Award (also know as COMNAP Antarctic Fellowship) is an investment in the professional development of talented early career researchers. Since its establishment in 2011, the scheme enabled 23 early‐career persons to collaborate with international teams from other countries strengthening international capacity and cooperation.
You can read more here about past successful applicants.
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National Antarctic Program Collaboration Enables Extraction of earth's oldest ice
10 January 2025
After four seasons in the field, years of planning, and with coordination through Italy’s CNR Istituto di Scienze Polari, the “Beyond EPICA” project has announced SUCCESS extracting the world’s oldest ice.
This is an “historic milestone for climate science” all made possible through collaboration of many project partners, including COMNAP Member national Antarctic programs AWI, BAS, IPEV, ENEA and NPI. Read more at the Beyond EPICA website. See the videos of the ice core and the efforts it took to drill 2,800 meters into Antarctic ice. Watch over the next few months as the ice core is carefully brought out of Antarctica on the Italian icebreaker Laura Bassi.
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone involved. This ice is expected to reveal critical details about Earth's climate and atmospheric history, extending beyond 800,000 years ago and showing a continuous record of the history of our climate as far back as 1.2 million years.
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Congratulations to Andriy Fedchuk
9 January 2025
Andriy Fedchuk, National Antarctic Scientific Centre of Ukraine DMNAP, is one of the three recipients of the SCAR 2024 Visiting Scholarships. He will visit the British Antarctic Survey for a project titled “Capacity Building in Development of Multi-Site Environmental Management in Antarctica”.