Coordination of Europe’s climate-related knowledge base: Networking and collaborating through interactive events, social media and focussed groups

• Published in: Climate Services
• Main Authors: Hewitt, Chris, Bessembinder, Janette, Buonocore, Mauro, Dunbar, Tyrone, Garrett, Natalie, Doblas-Reyes, Francisco, Terrado, Marta
• Other Authors: Barcelona Supercomputing Center
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021
• Subjects: Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Enginyeria agroalimentària::Ciències de la terra i de la vida::Climatologia i meteorologia; Climate science; Earth systems data and models; Networks; Consortiums; Europe; Climate services; Climate research; Climate modelling; Networking; Collaboration; Inclusion; Simulació per ordinador; Dunbar; Lola; Kotova; Groenland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2117/365116; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2021.100264

Knowledge of the climate is essential to manage climate-related risks. Underpinning this knowledge is a huge range of climate research and climate service activities. There has been a marked expansion of such activities and while the numerous and diverse funding streams, activities and organizations involved means that climate service development is relatively well resourced in places, there is a risk that the landscape becomes fragmented, duplicative, confusing, and inefficient. To mitigate this, the European Commission established the Climateurope project to bring coordination to Europe’s climate-related knowledge base. Climateurope created a managed network to share knowledge, improve synergies and reduce fragmentation among the stakeholders. As the network evolved, we proactively strove for equality, diversity and inclusion, for example for gender, under-represented regions, and under-represented stakeholder groups. Climateurope explored and adopted innovative approaches to engaging the network members, including face-to-face networking events (Festivals), virtual networking events (Webstivals and webinars), use of arts, social media, expert groups, publications, and an active website. The mix and integration of the traditional communications, such as website, publications and expert groups, with more innovative and varied approaches, such as the Festivals, Webstivals, social media and arts, proved popular and successful in making the network active and attractive. We describe how the network and collaboration was established and managed, and we offer some recommendations for others based on our experiences, including consideration of equality, diversity and inclusion, consider strategies for growing, managing and sustaining the network, and consider a mix of virtual and physical networking events. This work was funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union: Climateurope - Linking science and society, Project ref. 689029. The views expressed are purely those of the authors who were all involved in the project and may not under any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. Thank you to Rob Groenland and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the paper Peer Reviewed "Article signat per 18 autors/es: Chris Hewitt, Janette Bessembinder, Mauro Buonocore, Tyrone Dunbar, Natalie Garrett, Lola Kotova, Stacey New, Paula Newton, Rebecca Parfitt, Carlo Buontempo, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Francesca Guglielmo, Daniela Jacob, Erik Kjellström, Aleksandra Krzic, Helena Martins, Alessia Pietrosanti, Marta Terrado" Postprint (published version)