Research licenses
An ECOMET Member can provide free and unrestricted access to meteorological data and products for educational and research purposes, provided the conditions below are met:
1. The definitions of research and educational use must be met.
2. Note that open publication of a study is in itself not a sufficient condition, thus for example the following are not regarded as qualifying research or educational projects :
- studies carried out and published to meet a legal requirement (e.g. site study)
- studies carried out which give an economic advantage for a particular user or group of users.
In these cases a specific agreement must be negotiated between the ECOMET Member and the beneficiary.
3. Note that an activity is considered as being commercial and therefore cannot benefit from these conditions if it involves any development which will subsequently be the object of, or will contribute to
- a sale, a licence or a right of use (software, publication, ...)
- the deposit of a patent
- the realisation of tools or teaching material being for sale or contributing to a sale.
A standard template which could be used for Research and Education can be found here.
The relevant definitions for research and education licenses are as follows:
Research project : any project organised by a university, a scientific institute or similar (private or institutional), for non commercial research purposes only. A necessary condition for the recognition of non-commercial purposes is that all the results obtained are openly available at handling and delivery costs only, without any delay linked to commercial objectives, and that the research itself is submitted for open publication (ref. IRO definition 1.9).
Educational use : any use of data and products by a school, university, scientific institute or similar (private or institutional), solely for educational purposes, without transmission or redistribution of these data and products to any further third party, nor use of them to generate a meteorological value added service. (ref. IRO definition 1.10).
Free and unrestricted : means non-discriminatory and without charge, ..., at no more than the cost of reproduction and delivery (from WMO Resolution 40). Reproduction and delivery includes all direct costs generated by their requirements; including the cost of distribution media, transmission, documentation and direct labour costs of servicing the request.