The International Arctic Research Center (IARC) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) was established in 1999 as a cooperative research institute supported by both the U.S. and Japanese governments. Funding comes from the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. and from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
IARC serves as a focal point of excellence for international collaboration and provides the Arctic research community with an unprecedented opportunity to share knowledge about science in the Arctic, with an emphasis on global change research. The primary mission of the IARC is to nurture, integrate and synthesize research being conducted internationally by individuals and groups in order to identify natural and man-made changes. More than 20 international groups and more than 60 scientists are collaborating with IARC, allowing the institute to meet the UAF mission and goals in a concrete way.
IARC is devoting specific effort to answering the following three questions: (1) Is climate change due to natural or man-made causes? (2) What parameters, processes and interactions are needed to understand and predict future climate change? and (3) What are the likely impacts of climate change?