Final Activity Report Summary - METIER (Methods in interdisciplinary environmental research)
The Marie Curie Series of Events METIER consisted of seven graduate training courses and one final conference. It was organised by the PEER network of seven large European centres of environmental research: Joint Research Centre - Institute for Environment and Sustainability (JRC-IES, European Commission), Cemagref (F), Alterra Wageningen UR (NL), Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and Univ. of Leicester (UK), National Environmental Research Institute (NERI, DK), Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE, FIN), and Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ, D).
The series focused on cutting-edge methods of interdisciplinary environmental research with emphasis on data collection and analysis such as remote sensing in the context of atmosphere (Course 1), hydrosphere (Course 6), and land surface (Course 3), environmental information management (Course 2), geovisualisation (Course 4), environmental (especially ecological) modelling (Course 5), and environmental scenario development and analysis (Course 7).
All courses followed the same didactic concept that was developed by the METIER steering committee consisting of the course leaders. Streamlining was done with the aim to provide clearly structured stand-alone courses and, in parallel, make the overall series coherent and consistent. This was motivated by the wish to contribute to a European graduate curriculum for methods in environmental research that is missing so far. All courses consisted of a mixture of lectures on central concepts and approaches for the methods addressed, talks on the potential of their application to real world problems, practical work, presentations of the course attendees on their own research, visits of labs, and place for social interaction and cooperation among the course attendees and with the course lecturers. In all courses, international experts in the field served as lecturers. The methodologies were applied to important topics of European environmental policy: climate, water, land use, and biodiversity.
The final conference provided a platform for bringing together the attendees of the former courses with other young scientists, presenting the METIER methods and their potential to a broader audience, bringing together young researchers with both internationally renowned scientists and policy makers, and promoting the exchange between science and policy. Courses and final conference were attended by early stage researchers from all over the world (Europe and overseas). The training material of the entire series is published on the METIER website: http://www.peer.eu/projects/metier_training_courses/(öffnet in neuem Fenster) representing a comprehensive step towards a curriculum for methods in environmental research.
The series focused on cutting-edge methods of interdisciplinary environmental research with emphasis on data collection and analysis such as remote sensing in the context of atmosphere (Course 1), hydrosphere (Course 6), and land surface (Course 3), environmental information management (Course 2), geovisualisation (Course 4), environmental (especially ecological) modelling (Course 5), and environmental scenario development and analysis (Course 7).
All courses followed the same didactic concept that was developed by the METIER steering committee consisting of the course leaders. Streamlining was done with the aim to provide clearly structured stand-alone courses and, in parallel, make the overall series coherent and consistent. This was motivated by the wish to contribute to a European graduate curriculum for methods in environmental research that is missing so far. All courses consisted of a mixture of lectures on central concepts and approaches for the methods addressed, talks on the potential of their application to real world problems, practical work, presentations of the course attendees on their own research, visits of labs, and place for social interaction and cooperation among the course attendees and with the course lecturers. In all courses, international experts in the field served as lecturers. The methodologies were applied to important topics of European environmental policy: climate, water, land use, and biodiversity.
The final conference provided a platform for bringing together the attendees of the former courses with other young scientists, presenting the METIER methods and their potential to a broader audience, bringing together young researchers with both internationally renowned scientists and policy makers, and promoting the exchange between science and policy. Courses and final conference were attended by early stage researchers from all over the world (Europe and overseas). The training material of the entire series is published on the METIER website: http://www.peer.eu/projects/metier_training_courses/(öffnet in neuem Fenster) representing a comprehensive step towards a curriculum for methods in environmental research.