From	Keith Briffa	Date	Fri Jan 13 15:38:01 2006
To	Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Eystein Jansen, Eric W Wolff
Subject	Urgent request for reference letter
Dear Valerie, Eystein and Eric, We (that is Phil and myself - and of course also Bo) are hoping that you can help us greatly with an application Bo Vinther is submitting to the EU for a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (EIF) , specifically to spend time with Phil and I at CRU working on the dating and interpretation of seasonally-resolved ice core data and tree-ring data. We are allowed to submit up to 3 reviews or testimonials (though these must be submitted directly through the We would be really grateful if each of you would agree to provide one of these. Unfortunately, if you can make the time to help, these must in submitted by next Thursday. Please accept our apologies for the lateness of this request - but you can probably understand that , as usual things have had to be cut fine. The first stage of evaluation is based only on the quality of the applicant (70%) and the quality of the proposed research plan (30%). If the proposal gets through to the second evaluation stage , then other factors such as the quality of the hosts and host institution become relevant . At this stage we would ask that you read the attached Science Plan and details of the Quality of the Candidate, and write an assessment based primarily on these. We will send precise details of how to submit them early next week. You probably also know just how strong the competition is these days for such awards , so reviews have to be particularly glowing, but it is only because Phil and I are so keen to work with Bo that we are taking the liberty of asking for your support. I am sure you know , and certainly Valerie has indicated to me, how impressive Bo's work is. I am sure he is the sort of person for whom these awards are meant, as he is someone who will be doing important work to advance the field one day. I am attaching (virtually final ) drafts of the relevant sections , which are all that you need to be able to write these testimonials. We will send the full applications when they are complete. It would also help if you stressed your own distinguished qualifications , that make you so well qualified to offer this review. Please let me know whether you are able to do this for us. Thank you lots Keith and Phil -- Professor Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Norwich, NR4 7TJ, U.K. Phone: +44-1603-593909 Fax: +44-1603-507784 [1]http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/ References 1. http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/people/briffa/