In 2022 we focused on strengthening our ‘One ECMWF’ culture to ensure that every member of staff, regardless of duty station or field of work, feels part of the same organisation, shares the same overarching vision and objectives, and is treated equally.
As pandemic restrictions eased in the spring, staff were able to return to site and also work remotely in line with our teleworking policy. Our offices gradually reopened their doors to external visitors too, allowing us to welcome ministerial delegations, host university visits and resume in-person bilateral meetings with major partners.
Opportunities for staff to engage continued to be developed with the aim of achieving a good balance between site-specific and cross-site engagement. We remain committed to promoting diversity, equality and inclusion (DE&I) through the development and implementation of a DE&I action plan, initially focused on gender diversity and cross-cultural awareness.
In the work we undertake on behalf of the European Commission, we successfully transitioned to the second phase of the Copernicus services and established strong foundations for our Destination Earth (DestinE) activities.
For Copernicus, the transition involved many contract extensions, new procurements and the move to Bonn of a sizeable fraction of our staff.
For DestinE, we launched an extensive recruitment exercise to strengthen the teams developing digital twins and began putting in place external contracts to help deliver the first phase of the initiative, involving many entities from our Member States.
International organisation
The flags of the 23 ECMWF Member States at our sites in Bonn (left), Bologna (middle) and Reading (right) are a visual reminder of our status as an international organisation.
In the UK, we continued to work with the Government on plans for new headquarters on the campus of the University of Reading. By the end of the year, the planning application was being prepared for submission to the local council and a tender had been launched for the principal design-and-build contract.
The Weather Room in Reading
At our UK headquarters, we gradually resumed on-site meetings, workshops and weekly internal weather discussions.
In Germany, we welcomed over 50 new members of staff and worked closely with our local hosts to create adequate working space for our growing teams. The flags of our 23 Member States were installed at the Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) headquarters, our interim home until our new building opens. In September, the first anniversary of the opening of our Bonn site was an opportunity to bring together staff across three duty stations, face to face and virtually.
One year in Bonn
Left to right: Gertrud Husch (German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure), Florence Rabier (ECMWF Director-General) and Gerhard Adrian (President of Deutscher Wetterdienst, DWD) mark one year in Bonn.
In Italy, the final handover of our new data centre took place in April with representatives of the Emilia-Romagna region and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We issued our first forecasts using the Atos high-performance computing facility in October. Staff in Bologna, Bonn and Reading raised a toast to celebrate the successful migration, joined by many other colleagues who followed the celebrations virtually. Every department at ECMWF had a role to play, small or large, in the complex and challenging multi-year project.
First forecasts from Bologna
This milestone was marked across the three sites with short addresses from Mike Hawkins, Head of HPC and Storage Section (top left), and Director of Research Andy Brown in Reading (bottom left), and from Director of Computing Martin Palkovič in Bologna (bottom right).
As an international organisation, we are proud of our multicultural environment. At the end of 2022, we had 436 members of staff from 35 different countries.
During the year, we hosted:
- 8 visiting scientists: 3 from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA); 1 from the China Meteorological Administration (CMA); 1 from the Korean Meteorological Administration (KMA); 1 from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada; 1 from the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation, Germany; and 1 from the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI)
- 5 EUMETSAT Fellows from Spain and the United Kingdom
- 1 WMO Fellow from Cameroon
- 5 graduate trainees from Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom
In October, staff in Reading and Bonn took part in the ‘Running out of time’ non-stop relay. They joined the thousands of runners, cyclists and sailors who covered a recordbreaking 7,767 km across 18 countries over 38 days from Scotland to Egypt to deliver a message on climate action to the world’s leaders at COP27.
The relay started on 30 September in Glasgow, the location of COP26, and finished on 7 November in Sharm el-Sheik.
In September, our annual six-a-side football tournament was an opportunity for staff, families and friends to enjoy a great evening together playing football, helping with the organisation or simply supporting the teams.
#OneECMWF
Our UK team posing for a photo after completing their 14 km stage of the ‘Running out of time’ climate action relay (left), our Germany team taking the baton to set off for a 10 km leg of the relay (middle), and the 2022 Football tournament winning team (right).
We are proud of our multicultural environment with staff from
35 different countries.
The 35 Member and Co-operating States of ECMWF are the principal sources of finance for the Centre, with contributions totalling £54.7 million, representing a large proportion of the Centre’s funding. External organisations support both core research and the complementary goals of the Centre with funding of £43.8 million. Revenue from sales of data and products provides additional income of just under £12.9 million, while other operating revenue totals £12.4 million.
We are proud of our multicultural environment with staff from
35 different countries.
ECMWF continued to invest in its staff, infrastructure, and systems to provide the highest quality products to its Member and Co-operating States. The main areas of expenditure, including capital investment of £2.3 million principally for IT and infrastructure, are as follows: remuneration and related items (£29.6 million), pension schemes (£29.8 million), computer expenses (£14.7 million), buildings (£9.5 million) and other operating activities (£4.4 million). Costs associated with externally funded projects amounted to £34.8 million and net finance costs were £19.6 million.
ECMWF’s budget remains on a cash basis and the Financial Statements include a reconciliation of the results under IPSAS and in cash terms. Under cash accounting, the Centre generated a surplus of £16.267 million in 2022, which is available either for future investment or distribution to Member States according to a decision to be made by the Council in 2023.
Note: all numbers exclude Centre tax.
