Supporters of the PAMGuard Project

PAMGuard is maintained by the Sea Mammal Research Unit (SMRU) at the University of St Andrews and the university owned company SMRU Ltd. The PAMGuard software is free:  it's free to download and use;  it’s also free in the sense that the source code is publically accessible to anyone who wishes to use or change it. SMRU / SMRU Ltd (The "Guardians") receive no income from sales or licensing of the software.

To date, PAMGuard development and support has mostly been funded directly by industry groups in the Industry Research Funders Coalition (IRFC) and then the OGP Joint Industry Programme on Sound and Marine Life (JIP). Aside from funds received from JIP, in recent years, we have been successful in receiving additional funding for a number of PAMGuard developments including

  1. New algorithms for new multi-hydrophone 3D localisation methods, funded by the Scottish Government with real time functionality funding from an offshore wet renewables company.
  2. An alarm system, funded by the US Department of Defence
  3. Improvements to the user interface for offline click analysis, funded by a UK wind farm company
  4. The implementation of data entry forms (based on the IFAW Logger software) funded by the US NOAA SW fisheries science centre
  5. The implementation of a DIFAR sonobuoy processing module funded by the Australian Antarctic Division.