The GHEA website is designed to facilitate the free flow of ideas and the development of new initiatives and funding opportunities amongst the community. The GHEA community is a bottom up driven organisation, there is no leader directing its direction. However, we do have rules and these will be described on this page. All GHEA users need to abide by these rules, which are designed to make the GHEA website a pleasant and useful place to accomplish our mission "to facilitate the of growth in effective human-ecodynamics research".
Whilst our website is publically accessible, you need to be a registered GHEA user to contribute content. Registration is very easy and only takes a few minutes. You will need to upload a short resumé/cv (maximum of two pages) to the website, as well as supplying contact information and your research interests. Once registered you can then initiative new projects, collaborations, lead discussions, post funding opportunities etc.
As one of the main goals of GHEA is to foster collaboration between a diverse range of researchers, when entering a new Activity/Project or Product/Result you will need to identify at least four other GHEA members who you are collaborating with. It is of course a good idea to discuss details before you add anything to the website. Everytime a new Activity/Project or Product/Result is added the collaborators are automatically emailed to inform them. Collaborators are also able to remove themselves from projects.
Anyone can read the working group pages, so when creating a working group do not write anything that you do not want to be openly available. Any logged in GHEA member can create or join a working group or post a message in a forum. Forum messages can be flagged to be read by anyone or only by logged in GHEA members. All GHEA members must respect the opinions of others and behave appropriately in the forums.
GHEA follows the NSF Office of Polar Programs' Principles for the Conduct of Research in the Arctic. This states that research workers have "an ethical responsibility toward the people of the North, their cultures, and the environment". This of course applies to all cultures and the environment everywhere. All GHEA research projects need to adhere to these principles.
You are also encouraged to read the NSF Arctic Social Sciences Program's Program Guidelines when submitting applications. In particular, take note of the rules involving research with human subjects.
As an international organisation, we also acknowledge the ethics policies of funding bodies in other countries. Whilst it is not possible to link to every one of these, we would like to draw your attention to the ethics policies of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council and Economic & Scoical Research Research Council.
Our research activities must respect the rights of others and anyone who does not follow the principles set out in the above links will not be allowed to continue as a member of GHEA.
We take our responsibilities of protecting your data seriously, which is why you are required to register on the site before you can contribute to GHEA. GHEA aims to share ideas and be a catalyst for new research initiatives, so we encourage you to contribute to this website, but remember that anyone can read the information on the website, not only GHEA members. The only information not accessible to the public (or the webmaster) is your password, which is encrypted. If you forget your password, please go to the Reset Password page and a new random password will be emailed to you.
The UK's Data Protection Act 1998 covers the storage of personal information and please be careful to only include information which you want to be available in the public domain. You are responsible for your own records on the GHEA system but if you have any problems or questions about this please get in touch.