Abstract:

Recently, an increasing number of countries have been paying great attention to scientific research in the Antarctic. As the initiator of the Antarctic Treaty and the manager of the Antarctic Treaty system, the United States continues to stand at the cutting edge of Antarctic scientific research to maintain its leadership of international Antarctic affairs. From 1953 to 2016, the National Science Foundation supported 7 759 Antarctic scientific research projects. These projects are statistically analyzed and divided into four parts in this study: investment in Antarctic projects, investment in Antarctic scientific research projects, major scientific projects, and cooperative institutions. The analysis resulted in five research findings. (1) Since 1953, the US has continued to increase funding for Antarctic scientific research projects, which highly supported the development and implementation of US Antarctic policy. (2) The strategic documents published by US scientific guidance institutions played a significant role in determining the future direction of US Antarctic scientific research programs.(3) Furthermore, the NSF took full advantage of available resources and facilities of universities and research institutions to establish scientific support platforms in order to launch long-term sustainable Antarctic scientific research cooperation. (4) The NSF also gave priority to major Antarctic scientific research projects, which stand at the forefronts of respective disciplines, thereby helping the US to become one of the top Antarctic scientific powers in the world. (5) The US in turn attached great importance to Antarctic education programs to promote the construction of Antarctic talent teams and cultivate public awareness of the Antarctic. On the basis of the findings above, corresponding policy implications and recommendations related to Chinese Antarctic scientific research are put forward.

Key words: National Science Foundation, the Antarctic projects, scientific research investment, logistics investment, major projects