Polar scientists can expect easier access to funds. Credit: F. FUNDEL/ALFRED-WEGENER-INSTITUT

European polar researchers could enjoy easier access to funding thanks to a cooperative deal between key institutes.

Twenty-six institutions associated with polar research signed up to the European Polar Framework on 24 June, including the British Antarctic Survey, Germany's Alfred-Wegener Institute and the Norwegian Polar Institute. Paul Egerton, executive director of the polar board for the European Science Foundation, which is behind the framework, told Nature he hoped Russia would soon sign up too.

Funding rounds from separate national research programmes may be combined, and it should also be easier for researchers to secure places at other countries' research stations, says Egerton. The new framework, he adds, continues the spirit of International Polar Year, which ended in March 2009 (see Nature 457, 1074; 2009).