Periodic Reporting for period 3 - INTERACT (International Network for Terrestrial Research and Monitoring in the Arctic)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-01-01 al 2024-12-31
Planet Earth is facing unprecedented environmental changes that will affect all members of society. Arctic climate warming is three times the global rate and unpredictable extreme events are causing major impacts on people and ecosystems. As the Arctic is connected to the rest of the world through atmospheric and ocean circulations, changes in the Arctic cause extreme events and societal damage in other latitudes. The Arctic and global scale of the multiple changes need cooperative international research and monitoring to understand, predict, adapt and mitigate. Mitigation and adaptation require societal action but this will only be successful if public perceptions of change and attitudes are modified throughout the world by outreach and empowerment of the next generation that needs to be equipped to live in a different world.
INTERACT III innovates a pan-arctic network of 99 research stations in 16 northern countries (currently collaboration with 21 Russian research stations on pause) to provide a fully integrated, advanced infrastructure now able to meaningfully address major societal challenges and provide services and connections for 155 global and regional networks and 25 000 visiting scientists each year. Furthermore, the global reputation of INTERACT has attracted world-leading partners and enterprises to participate in reducing the impacts of hazardous change while maximizing the opportunities arising from new technologies. Station managers' actions, transnational access and joint research activities cooperate to address major societal challenges in a fully integrated infrastructure while the resulting data and understanding are made globally available through exceptional outreach, education and policy briefings to decision makers.
Specifically, INTERACT III provides proactive, responsive and comprehensive coordination 99 research stations (currently collaboration with 21 Russian research stations on pause). The station managers design best practices to facilitate safe, efficient and excellent research and monitoring throughout the Arctic. INTERACT III builds on an extremely successful transnational access program that has already populated the Arctic with more than 1000 researchers to further provide often ground breaking science while reducing the environmental footprints of researchers through designing and promoting remote and virtual access opportunities. The access transnationality ensures new collaborations, new science innovations and enhanced educational resources freely available throughout the world. These successes have attracted attention at government levels and represent science diplomacy in action at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.
INTERACT III innovates a pan-arctic network of 99 research stations in 16 northern countries (currently collaboration with 21 Russian research stations on pause) to provide a fully integrated, advanced infrastructure now able to meaningfully address major societal challenges and provide services and connections for 155 global and regional networks and 25 000 visiting scientists each year. Furthermore, the global reputation of INTERACT has attracted world-leading partners and enterprises to participate in reducing the impacts of hazardous change while maximizing the opportunities arising from new technologies. Station managers' actions, transnational access and joint research activities cooperate to address major societal challenges in a fully integrated infrastructure while the resulting data and understanding are made globally available through exceptional outreach, education and policy briefings to decision makers.
Specifically, INTERACT III provides proactive, responsive and comprehensive coordination 99 research stations (currently collaboration with 21 Russian research stations on pause). The station managers design best practices to facilitate safe, efficient and excellent research and monitoring throughout the Arctic. INTERACT III builds on an extremely successful transnational access program that has already populated the Arctic with more than 1000 researchers to further provide often ground breaking science while reducing the environmental footprints of researchers through designing and promoting remote and virtual access opportunities. The access transnationality ensures new collaborations, new science innovations and enhanced educational resources freely available throughout the world. These successes have attracted attention at government levels and represent science diplomacy in action at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.
To work toward our overall objective INTERACT has achieved the following: 1) provided 6100 person-days of access which is 94% of the person-days of access anticipated in the grant agreement which is excellent considering the limited access to the Arctic caused by covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the outset of the project 2) expanded and further developed the INTERACT Data Portal (virtual access) 3) taken outreach activities to a new level through the concept of a film trilogy, that engage (the Northwards docu-series), informs (the Changing Global Arctic) and provoke the audience. The two series have been broad casted on Rai Scuola (National Italian tv available to 60 million) and is available worldwide on RaiPlay on-demand platform 4) ensured excellent research support by improving station management by learning from each other and producing new guidebooks on e.g. how to reduce plastic consumption and pollution at research stations and in local communities 5) filled important geographical gaps in the monitoring of environmental contaminants by initiating new monitoring at 9 INTERACT Stations 6) provided unique guidelines on sustainable tourism in the Arctic produced by Indigenous Peoples living in the area 7) provided new educational material including 70 online lessons for secondary school and reached out to more than 2500 STEM teachers and educators from more than 70 countries 8) ensured a platform to allow continued future collaboration and further development of the INTERACT network through the INTERACT non-profit association.
In response to the commitment of partners in the INTERACT process, many contributions of considerable added value have been achieved:
- To sustain INTERACT into the future, the INTERACT Non-Profit Association has been launched formally with external financial support
- New observer stations have joined INTERACT to add to the geographical coverage of the network and new MoUs have been signed with various international organisations
- INTERACT has produced a Communication and Navigation Guidebook
- A special issue of Ambio on Siberian environmental change has brought together 93 authors from 20 countries contributing (including TA Users).
- An API has been developed to allow metadata harvesting from the INTERACT data portal by other portals to improve the findability and accessibility of Virtual Access
- An INTERACT Machine Learning Algorithm (IMLA) has been developed to sort datasets in the INTERACT Data Portal into topic categories.
- A range of different types of educational resources have been developed.
- A freely available INTERACTive e-book has been published containing many of these resources.
- To sustain INTERACT into the future, the INTERACT Non-Profit Association has been launched formally with external financial support
- New observer stations have joined INTERACT to add to the geographical coverage of the network and new MoUs have been signed with various international organisations
- INTERACT has produced a Communication and Navigation Guidebook
- A special issue of Ambio on Siberian environmental change has brought together 93 authors from 20 countries contributing (including TA Users).
- An API has been developed to allow metadata harvesting from the INTERACT data portal by other portals to improve the findability and accessibility of Virtual Access
- An INTERACT Machine Learning Algorithm (IMLA) has been developed to sort datasets in the INTERACT Data Portal into topic categories.
- A range of different types of educational resources have been developed.
- A freely available INTERACTive e-book has been published containing many of these resources.