Summary
A European Partnership between the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), and the newly founded Italian Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council of Italy (ISP-CNR) is proposed. The partnership focuses on the development of chronologies for polar paleoclimate archives dived in two sub-projects. The goal of the first research project carried out in the scientific context of the EU-funded “Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice (BE-OI)” ice-core drilling campaign is to develop high-resolution chronologies for highly thinned ice layers. The second research project will address the challenge of developing high-resolution chronologies in high-latitude marine sediments using cosmogenic radionuclides and a tight coupling with the layer-counted ice-core records.

Objectives
The aim of PAIGE is to improve chronologies of high-latitude paleoclimate archives, namely from ice and marine sediment cores, in a joint Italian-German effort. This project integrates two central topics of the research at AWI and at the Italian partner institution and focuses on fields for which both partner institutions are exceptionally qualified. The cooperation is the nucleus to establish breadthways cooperation between both partners, namely on the – initial – fields of paleoclimatology, glaciology, oceanography and polar biology.This program will support research placements of members of both institutes at the respective partner institution, and will explicitly address not only scientists involved in the two research projects but also colleagues from other disciplines, as well as administrative staff.

Project Partners
• Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)