FAQ Launch Challenge

We are launching our activities this fall 2015 with a Launch Challenge and a Crowdfunding campaign.

This initiative emerged through discussions with many colleagues, scientists and friends. The ideas took a coherent shape in 2013 and were presented at an American scientific conference in Colorado and the following year at a European conference in Vienna. We started in 2014 by building an initial, yet worldwide community, an Internet platform and then a non-profit organisation.

The submission of manuscripts to Climanosco is generally open to all climate scientists who have published at least one article in a recognized peer-reviewed journal in the area of climate sciences. However, for this challenge specifically, we had to limit participation by issuing invitations. We have a good reason for this. We are still a small community and as such, there is a limit to the number of manuscripts we can streamline through our peer-review process while assuring its quality. For this reason, we have to limit the participation to this challenge to a number of around 25 main authors.

Requests for recommendations of early career scientists have been sent to 25 leading universities in America, Europe, and Asia. After reception of these recommendations, personal invitations were sent to 29 selected candidates. Candidates were asked to notify Climanosco as soon as possible but no later than 15 September if they accept to take part to the challenge.

By “citizen” we mean any person who is interested to engage and who is not an active climate scientist.

Our internet platform has a multi-lingual capacity built in. We plan to switch to the multi-lingual mode when we have enough members in a few major linguistic regions to allow for the translation of our articles by our members and its verification.

The Jury of the Challenge is composed of all the scientific Editors who edited Manuscripts for this Challenge and of an equal number of members who are not climate scientists. The latter will be nominated by the Board of Directors in the coming months.

In general, the only restriction that we impose on manuscripts submitted to Climanosco is that they must be based on scientific results that have already been published in recognized peer-reviewed journals in the area of climate sciences. However, for this challenge specifically, we had to require that authors submit what we called “paraphrased articles”. The reason is that we are still a small community and our capacity to peer-review manuscripts in a reasonable period of time and with quality is limited. Following our rules, “paraphrased articles” that are submitted by an author of the original scientific article do not need to be peer-reviewed by Scientific Referees. Having an original author onboard is normally sufficient to ensure that the content is consistent with the original scientific article. This is also overall verified by the Editor. The “paraphrased articles” nonetheless go through a non-scientific peer-review to ensure their accessibility to a large public. So, by restricting the challenge to this type of submissions, we were able to increase the number of admitted manuscript for this challenge.

Yes. One important component of this Challenge is about learning how to write science in non-scientific language. By taking part in other manuscripts’ discussions, authors will find a unique source of inspiration which will help them improve their own Manuscript and win the best prizes.

Climanosco is independent at both the financial and governance levels. Climanosco is a non-profit association exclusively governed by its members. It does not accept institutional members. Donations are capped and Climanosco does not engage with any partnership with its donors.

Our strategy is based on a high value engagement business model. In other words, we rely on quality elbow grease! We take great care to maximise the ratio output/costs by doing a lot of “home-made” thanks to our access to brilliant students and by capitalising on our community’s engagement. Financially, Climanosco relies on membership fees (free for 2015-2016), capped donations and the occasional sale of publications or other products. We offer our main end-product, namely our published articles, for free. This is for Climanosco the fairest possible publicity and the best way to engage more people around the world to contribute to our effort.
Note that we are organising this September-October 2015 a Crowdfunding campaign to raise our first money.

Climanosco has its legal domicile in at the Impact Hub Zurich, Switzerland, at the address:

Climanosco
c/o The Hub Zurich Association
Viaduktstrasse 93-95
8005 Zurich

The Impact Hub Zurich is part of a network of hubs around the world providing entrepreneurs co-sharing spaces, workshops, and networking possibilities.

Submission of manuscripts to Climanosco is open at all times, including during our launch challenge 2015. However, we require your patience if you submit a manuscript during this challenge, as the community is working hard to streamline the manuscripts participating to the challenge.