01/03/2007
On 29-30 January 2007 the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water management, Forest Area Planning and Forest Protection hosted a kick-off meeting in Vienna, Austria. It was the formal starting point of this funding initiative. The purpose of the meeting was to foster communication between all the parties involved.
The meeting was attended by more than 50 participants from research and funding institutions. This was remarkable because of the small size of the funding initiative (seven joint projects with 24 sub-projects) and underlines the great importance attributed to the conference by the scientific community.
All project specific information can be found on the project list. All other information about the meeting can be found on the call details and project management page. To have a common starting point within the funding initiative and to foster communication between all parties involved, a kick-off meeting was initiated which lasted from 29-30 January, 2007, and took place in Vienna, Austria, hosted by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water management, Forest Area Planning and Forest Protection.
In preparation of the workshop, each project prepared a 1 page “fact sheet” comprising the basic outline of the project (project description). Furthermore, posters were displayed during the meeting to offer all participants a quick survey of the project concept. Posters can be downloaded below. The project descriptions are to be found in the project list.
The meeting was attended by more than 50 participants from research and funding institutions. This was remarkable because of the small size of the funding initiative (seven joint projects with 24 sub-projects) and underlines the great importance attributed to the conference by the scientific community.
On the first day of the meeting, there were presentations of the project concepts by the project coordinators which were discussed collectively. There were also two general discussions.
On the second day, a workshop was held. The goals of the workshop were
- to identify potentials for collaboration between projects
- to collect ideas for networking within the funding initiative
- to collect ideas how to improve the framework of the funding initiative.
The participants were divided into 3 groups and asked to discuss specific guiding questions referring to these headings (CRUE Workshop Briefing). The answers and emerging suggestions were subsequently discussed in the plenary and were recorded to serve as a fundament for the further development of the funding initiative.
Some important items were
Collaboration between projects:
- Various suggestions to establish thematic links and sharing of data/ models between projects
Networking:
- CRUE website could be used as a communication platform
- Collection of models employed to facilitate comparison of results (there will be 6 different hydrologic models used)
- Joint report on pilot areas
- Besides effectiveness and efficiency, further criteria to measure sustainability of measures are needed
- Uncertainty is an important methodological aspect
- How can different aspects of risk be compared / expressed by a common currency?
- Relations with climate change topic have to be discussed
Improving the framework:
- Some further directives for the projects are needed to ensure that common goals are pursued within the funding initiative
- Common definitions are required (e.g. terms ‘non-structural measures’, ‘efficiency’, …)
- A harmonisation of reporting is required
- Institutional context of the projects should be described
- Harmonisation of WFD and FD on a European level has to be discussed
The complete versions of the breakout group discussions can be downloaded below:
Next steps
The project coordinators are requested to send the links of their project homepages to the ERANET CRUE coordinator (info@crue-eranet.net) as soon as possible to enable completion the project list.
Picking up a suggestion evolving from the workshop, the CRUE Steering Group is preparing a midterm meeting in Lyon / France on 17 - 18 October 2007. The organisers will offer a possibility to hold internal project meetings in connection with the official midterm meeting on the second day. Research project leaders will be informed in due time about the necessary preparations.
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