1. International Polar Year Announcement of Opportunity IPY AO The IPY AO (http://eopi.esa.int/IPY) was opened on June 15 th 2006 and closed September 25 th 2006 (after ten days extension of the original deadline) 48 proposals were submitted in response to this call (out of a total of 56 initiated) 30 out of the 48 submitted declared to have an accepted “IPY Full Proposal” The review process is starting in October 2006; notification to PIs is scheduled for January 2007 Data delivery is schedule to start in March 2007, in compliance with the start of the IPY activities 21 Worldwide countries are represented, between PIs and co-PIs

2. PIs Country Distribution

3. Application Domains Distribution

4. Satellites Distribution

5. Sensors Distribution 19 Proposals are using more than one sensor together (mainly the combination of SAR and Optical) A total of nearly 51.000 ASAR High Rate scenes are requested, as well as coverage of the areas in Global Monitoring Mode A total of nearly 3.500 MERIS FR scenes are requested