It is time to repeat last year’s success. On 27 January 2017, Climate-KIC Nordic will host the first Ideation Day of the year at DTU Skylab, and the Nordic Climate-KIC community is invited to submit their most innovative ideas.

The purpose of Ideation Day is to develop and nurture the Climate-KIC community, which is crucial to facilitate collaboration on innovative projects with large potential climate impact.

Ideation Day provides an arena for participants to:

• Test their project and consortia ideas for climate innovation in a stimulating environment
• Meet new colleagues, work together and discuss ideas  to begin forming consortia
• Pitch their ideas in front of a jury
• Potentially move their project forward with financial support
• Become part of a more informed and closely connected Climate-KIC community

Limited awards will be available to support the further development of feasible ideas into full project proposals for future calls within the Climate-KIC Innovation Framework or for external project calls.

The sixteenth regular session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN is expected to address a series of sectoral and cross-sectoral issues of relevance to genetic resources for food and agriculture.

The complexity of climate change means that appropriate approaches, methods and tools to communicate the problem and its various ramifications are urgently needed. Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) clearly addresses the importance of climate change communication with the general public and reiterates the need to engaging the various stakeholders in debating this issue. It also highlights the responsibility of the UNFCCC signatories countries to develop and implement educational and public awareness programmes on climate change and its effects, to ensure public access to information, and to promote public participation in addressing communication issues.

It is against this background that the “WORLD SYMPOSIUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATION” is being organized by the Research and Transfer Centre “Applications of Life Sciences” of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Manchester and the International Climate Change Information Programme (ICCIP) in collaboration with a set of organisations. The Symposium will be a truly interdisciplinary event, mobilizing scholars, social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies, undertaking research and/or executing projects on climate change communication across the worl

The upcoming ICCS5 will be held in Spring 2017. The conference will total 3 days, with an additional day either before or after scheduled for side meetings.

Workshop on improving the socio-economic impact of NWP data
28 February – 1 March
Accessibility, ease of use and data policy impact upon the realised value of NWP forecast data, as shown in recent socio-economic impact studies. The workshop will provide a forum to discuss the challenges of disseminating meteorological data into the future and how ECMWF and NMSs can ensure that the economic value of weather information can continue to be realised by the private market. The workshop will discuss the user needs, the requirement to provide access to fast-growing, large data sets and the available solutions. What are the challenges and costs of ingesting this information? What future opportunities and applications do users foresee for ECMWF forecast data?
The workshop is aimed at policy makers and professionals interested in the evolution of the meteorological industries.
Attendance: Attendance to the workshop is by invitation only.

16th Workshop on Meteorological Operational Systems (MOS)
1-3 March
Providing increasingly large and complex data sets, for scientists and industry to exploit, challenges traditional data centres to look at new technologies and work practices. This goes beyond the mere provision of data but also requires strategies for efficient processing and fast visualisation. Cloud based solutions and moving processing/visualisation to where data is stored are only some possible solutions.
The workshop on Meteorological Operational Systems (MOS) is biennially organised by ECMWF and reviews current and future developments of operational systems at ECMWF and National Weather Services. In 2017, the workshop will focus on how (open) data can be best brought to users. The workshop aims to review current pull services, such as standardised web services (OGC, INSPIRE) and push services, such as product generation and dissemination. Participants will be able to see the state-of-the-art of data service provision and will be able to network with key players in this community.
Attendance: Please complete the online registration form.
The deadline for speakers to register is 31 January 2017.
The deadline for participants to register is 13 February 2017.
There is no registration fee for this workshop.

#OpenDataHack @ECMWF – Beyond weather: explore creative uses of open data
4-5 March
Developers, experts, students, data wranglers, data journalists, data enthusiasts, makers, artists – you are invited to join the meteorologists, scientists and engineers of ECMWF at our #OpenDataHack on 4 and 5 March 2017.
As part of our activities, including the recently-added EU-funded Copernicus services on climate and atmospheric monitoring, we have collected and created vast quantities of global environmental data.
Spend a weekend with us to make and demo prototypes for new services and products.
Make practical apps for travellers or growers, or build educational and playful tools for the young and young at heart. We want to see you do amazing things with ECMWF open data.
Attendance: More information and registration under https://open-data-hack-ecmwf.eventbrite.co.uk.

Infrastructure and climate change – How will climate change impact infrastructure?
How to prepare and integrate this topic in decision-making processes, economic models and training?

ABSTRACT

All infrastructures are crucial for the well-being of citizens and the functioning of the economy, transport, electricity networks, water supply, sewers, buildings, telecommunications and dykes. As their name suggests, they structure the territories and irrigate the economy.
Climate change will have an impact on the adaptation of existing structures and especially on the renewal of networks and the design of future structures.
Anticipating, finding new technical but also economic and organizational solutions, informing and training the decision-makers are all subjects to be explored now with regard to future climatic and meteorological changes.
By sharing views and disciplines, it is a question of working to the resilience of the infrastructures, and to the installation of equipment and processes adapted and therefore less sensitive to the climatic stresses.
The purpose of this symposium is to bring together researchers in meteorology, climate science and social sciences, as well as planning experts and policy makers to discuss challenges, needs and examples of solutions and collaborations in response to these issues.

The first edition of the Climateurope Festival will take place in Valencia, 5-7 April, 2017. It will be an opportunity to meet, share ideas, and experience on the state and the future of climate services, climate Observations and Earth-System Modeling in Europe

“The future transport system: a public-private enterprise embracing infrastructure and vehicles across all modes”

The FEHRL Infrastructure Research Meeting 2017 (FIRM17), held every two years and now in the fourth edition of its current format, is for the second time open to all transport modes with speakers and participants from the logistics sector. This key event will be held in English and costs only 190 Euros per person (for three days conference, exhibition entrance and cocktail).
FIRM17 aims to gather around 100 transport infrastructure innovation and research experts, including European and national policy makers, leading industry and SMEs, standardisation agencies and the media.
The main highlights of FIRM17 will be:
1. The presentation of various strategic programmes from FEHRL, the European Commission, CEDR, PIARC, ERTRAC, ECTP and ALICE;
2. A round table about “Automated connected vehicles, car-sharing and electrification: How to tackle the imminent disruption to mobility their combined deployment will bring?”;
3. The final conferences of the two Horizon 2020 projects USE-iT and REFINET, and
4. A workshop about training and knowledge transfer for transport stakeholders supported by the SKILLFUL project.

FIRM17 will also include a session about the ERA-NET Plus INFRAVATION programme and a mini-exhibition.