The Global Emerging Radio Astronomy Foundation, or GERAF, was formed in response to the ongoing trend of internal funding resources in radio astronomy to be funnelled into large and ambitious projects at the expense of a variety of smaller, yet uniquely valuable facilities. GERAF seeks to source support for these facilities, that themselves are finding a new importance in the age of transient radio astronomy and which also have long provided essential training to generations of researchers. In this talk the motivation and operations of GERAF will be introduced along with status reports of the initial projects we have undertaken. If time permits possible future scenarios will also be discussed.
 

Brief CV of Dr. R. Burns:

Dr Ross Burns received his PhD in Astrophysics at Kagoshima University, Japan, and has worked as a radio astronomer in Japan and The Netherlands focusing on star formation and is a specialist of VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) observations. He currently leads the Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O) research group and is a director of the Global Emerging Radio Astronomy Foundation (GERAFoundation). His interests extend to radio telescope receiver systems and the operation of radio astronomy facilities, in addition to supporting local skills infrastructure through radio astronomy projects in developing countries.