This year has seen considerable successes for the Institute and its staff in terms of both academic research and our role in projecting the history and environmental significance of the polar regions more widely. In the physical and social sciences, and in our library, archival, and museum activities, we have secured a wide range of external grants. The acquisition of significant external funding for research in the social sciences and humanities, and for museum activities, represents an important addition to our continuing strong portfolio of competitively won research council grants relating to high-latitude environmental change. Institute staff hold grants of almost £2.5 million, and it is this external funding that has supported polar field programmes in both the natural and social sciences during 2004 in Antarctica, Greenland, Svalbard, and the Russian Far East. The information collected, using methods ranging from airborne lasers deployed over glaciers to informal discussions with native Siberian reindeer herders, will provide the basis for a number of forthcoming publications in both academic journals and books accessible to a wider readership.