As everyone is aware, the novel coronavirus COVID-19 continues to adversely impact the global community.  As such, the ALMA Director, along with the regional partners, have decided to delay the proposal deadline for the ALMA Cycle 8 Call for Proposals to NO EARLIER than 15 UT on 19 May, 2020.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak that has spread to Chile, the ALMA Director has made the decision to suspend science operations with ALMA, effective immediately. This decision has been taken to protect the safety of ALMA staff, many of whom travel long distances by bus and by plane to reach the remote ALMA site in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Chile and the measures announced by the Government that include, among others, the suspension of all schools, the ALMA management has decided to emplace a contingency plan that enables the Observatory to reduce operations to a minimum level in the coming days, with many staff working remotely. The goal is to reduce the number of people at both sites, Santiago Central Offices and the Observatory in Northern Chile, to minimize the chances of infections and thereby maximize the safety and well-being of all staff and contractors.

For up to date information on precautionary measures taken by ALMA against the COVID-19 virus please have a look at https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/precautionary-measures-against-covid-19/

The ALMA Director, on behalf of the Joint ALMA Observatory and the partner organizations in East Asia, Europe, and North America, is pleased to announce that the ALMA Cycle 8 Call for Proposals for scientific observations is now open.

As everyone is aware, the novel coronavirus COVID-19 continues to impact the global community.  As such, the ALMA Director, along with the regional partners, have decided to delay the proposal deadline for the ALMA Cycle 8 Call for Proposals to NO EARLIER than 1500 UT on 19 May, 2020. More information is provided in the following News Item.

ALMA continues to carefully monitor the situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and the evolving global situation. The next update to the community will be provided NO LATER than 21 April, 2020.  For additional questions regarding the Cycle 8 Call for Proposals, contact the ALMA Helpdesk at http://help.almascience.org.

ALMA is strongly committed to ensure that the proposal review process is as fair and impartial as possible. Analysis of the proposal rankings in previous cycles has identified systematics that may signify the presence of biases in the review process (see Systematics in the ALMA Proposal Review Rankings). In an effort to reduce biases as much as possible, ALMA will use a dual-anonymous proposal review process starting in Cycle 8.