Kick-off Meeting (Nov. 2019)
The kick-off meeting of W2W for Phase 2 took place in Eibelstadt close to Würzburg from November 4-6th 2019. The purpose of the meeting was to get to know each other and to start working together within projects, between research areas, and with the international guests to address the scientific challenges of W2W in Phase 2.
The project leaders and staff met, some for the first time, to present their W2W projects and research plans for the coming years. The international guests (keynote speakers and Scientific Advisory Board members) contributed to the many lively discussions and provided insightful feedback to the W2W community. The international guests were:
- Andy Brown (ECMWF)
- Juliana Dias (ESRL, NOAA, USA)
- Rupert Klein (Freie Universität Berlin)
- Ron McTaggart-Cowan (Environment Canada)
- Michael Morgan (University of Wisconsin)
- Susan van den Heever (Colorado State University)
- Nedjeljka Zagar (Universität Hamburg)
Some highlights of the meeting included a discussion dedicated to mathematics on "understanding and simulating uncertainty" led by Tijana Janjic-Pfander, and the presentation of a data management plan for W2W.
There were plenty of opportunities to discuss informally and to get to know each other, e.g., at the ice breaker on Monday, at breakfast and coffee break, and also during the workshop on "unconscious biases" organized on Wednesday. This workshop provided relevant research findings about the risks of biases in personnel selection or daily communication and offered a training in recognizing and dealing with such biases. The participants were invited to reflect on their own dealings with biases and stereotypes as well as to develop guidelines for a bias-aware communication in everyday academic teamwork.
At the General Assembly of W2W and at the ECS meeting, following structural changes have been made:
- re-election of the Steering Group
- election of a new ECS committee
- election of a new EO committee
- election of two new W2W members: Lisa-Ann Kautz and Markus Bachmayr
The program of the meeting and information about the venue is available here.