What are the criteria to qualify for a Research Project licence?

Overview

ECMWF Product Distribution Rules are designed to provide access to different user types while ensuring a level playing field is maintained in the competitive market place, and each user is given the same licence agreement to govern the conditions of use. 

This means that not all users are entitled to a Research Project licence but may require a Service Provider licence. The nature of an organisation does not guarantee access: some commercial entities conduct research, while some research institutions provide services (whether for profit or not).

Research Projects may be granted free-of-charge access to ECMWF Products (both historical and real-time), but in some cases, access fees or service charge fees may apply. 

Key Definitions

• Research Project: Any time-bound** project organised for non-commercial research purposes only, where an ongoing/continuous service based on ECMWF Products is not permitted without written consent from the Licensor. A necessary condition for the recognition of non-commercial purposes is that all the results obtained are openly available at delivery costs only, without any delay linked to commercial objectives, and that the research itself is submitted for open publication.
  
  ** Research licences cannot be longer than the duration of the project itself and up to a maximum of 3 years, whichever is shorter. A research licence may be renewed for research projects lasting longer than 3 years.
  
  
• Results: may include written reports, publications, presentations, and other forms of research output that do not involve the distribution or real-time Products or services based on real-time Products except where permission is granted.

Alternatives

Unfortunately, ECMWF is unable to support every Research Project and management/Licensors may decline free provision, or charges may apply for the delivery of data. 

However, we can recommend a number of alternative datasets which may be useful: 

• ECMWF Open Data (available via ECMWF, Microsoft, Amazon and Google Cloud)
• ERA5 (C3S global reanalysis)
• TIGGE
• S2S
• NCAR Repository (for North American research users) 
• Google Weatherbench2 (ERA5, 4x daily analysis & 2x daily forecasts (the latter two from 2016-2022))

Application Process

Real-time data

If you qualify with the definitions above, you can use the ECMWF Product Requirements Catalogue to submit a 'quote' for your data requirements. This step is important as it allows management to review the project scope and cost. Once a quote is submitted, the Licensor will contact you to obtain a project description which includes (but is not limited to): 

• Name of the project
• Organisation research is affiliated with 
• A description of the project
• Project duration
• Intended project outputs 
• Project participants
• URL(s) to the project if applicable
• Please indicate why real-time data is required and whether other sources have been used to date. 

 This information will be reviewed by management and a decision will be communicated. 

Historical data (MARS Archive) 

While the data in the Archive Catalogue is governed by CC-BY-4.0, the access method (WebAPI) is not free or open by default. Charges to access the system start from 1,500 EUR per year for Service Providers. 

For Research Projects, fees may be waived with management approval but will not be granted for users intending to provide a service (irrespective of whether it is commercial or not).

Once you have submitted a request for access to ECMWF Historical Data, you will be asked to provide the following information: 

• Name of the project
• Organisation research is affiliated with 
• A description of the project
• Project duration
• Intended project outputs 
• Project participants
• URL(s) to the project if applicable
• Please indicate why real-time data is required and whether other sources have been used to date.  

The information will be reviewed by management and a decision will be communicated.