Saturday, March 23rd, 2024
10:30 - 12:30 (UK) at Pollock Halls Estate
EU-PolarNet 2 is a consortium of 25 partners representing EU member states and associated partners, with the aim of establishing and sustaining an inclusive platform for the co-development and advancement of European Polar research actions and to give evidence-based advice to policymaking processes. To achieve this goal, EU-PolarNet 2 has six specific objectives with measurable outcomes assigned to the respective work packages that will address them.
One of these objectives was to identify priorities and key societally relevant Polar research themes. This task builds on the Integrated European Polar Research Programme (EPRP), the output of the previous project and national research strategies. For this purpose, a Polar Expert Group (PEG) was established, which together with representatives of other stakeholders took part in a retreat (Venice, San Servolo, June 2023). The retreat specified and customised the research themes and formulated future research actions.
The research prioritisation action was implemented through a three-step process:
Creation of a starting information base of relevant background documents, service projects, stakeholder meetings, surveys from within the EU Polar Cluster and in consultation with a specially constituted Polar Expert Group (PEG).
A deep and extensive analysis of the information based on an objective text data mining methodology that helped reduce the very large list of topics into the research needs and associated key questions.
During the thematic retreat, a group of experts, using the results from step 2, consolidated and ranked the relevant topics. A short and exhaustive description of each selected topic was made based on a defined template.
The aim of this session is:
to present details of the three-step process methodology that was developed and implemented for the prioritisation process.
present the outcomes achieved during the prioritisation exercise.
Stimulate a fruitful bottom-up discussion with the wider international science community to collect further comments.
The session will also be useful in creating the first connections between the metrics of EU-PolarNet 2 (research needs and key questions) with those of ICARP IV (7 topic areas of interest). Thus, securing the results of the EU-PolarNet 2 prioritisation exercise as an important contribution to the ICARP IV process.
Agenda
10:30 – 10:40 Introduction to the session (Carlo Barbante, EU-PolarNet2 WP3 Leader)
10:40 – 10:50 EU-PolarNet2 general introduction (Nicole Biebow, EU-PolarNet2 Project Coordinator)
10:50 – 11:10 Research Prioritization methodology & expert retreat (Chiara Venier, EU-PolarNet2 WP3 team member)
11:10 – 11:30 Retreat outcome: list of Priority Topics (Warren Cairns, EU-PolarNet2 WP3 team member)
11:30 – 11:45 Connecting two metrics: EU-PolarNet2 and ICARP IV priorities (Gerlis Fugmann, IASC Executive Secretary)
11:45 – 12:30 Guided discussion (questions will be collected from the audience – present and remote - to drive the discussion phase) (Session Chair, Carlo Barbante)