An intense and successful first I-CISK project General Assembly in Münster

The European project “Innovating Climate services through Integrating Scientific and local Knowledge” (I-CISK) recently held its first general assembly in Münster. 52°North invited representatives from all partners across Europe to present their progress and to discuss open questions from the first project year.

During a pre general assembly workshop, GECO and 52°North met in person to discuss the I-CISK Climate Service Platform architecture. These discussions carried on throughout the day and even dinner! The general assembly itself opened with a quick round of status updates by all Work Package (WP) and Living Lab (LL) leaders.

On day 2, an agile rescheduling of topics allowed for the introduction of new topics, identified during discussions, and those that didn’t quite fit into the first day’s agenda. IHE prepared a particularly valuable agenda session: a research speed dating among the LLs and WPs. Each WP met every LL for a (too short) limited time to quickly identify and discuss the most pressing questions. As a result, everyone is now up to date on the status and relevant requirements of the other partners. This was a very beneficial exercise for interaction within a large consortium.

More detailed discussions of the WPs and LLs shaped the remainder of the second day. 510 prepared a second, very effective exercise in spontaneous role playing as a requirement discussion. Partners took on the roles of the local stakeholder, LL leaders, the climate analyst, IT back-end and front-end representatives. The role play very nicely illustrated the challenges and pitfalls, but also opportunities within this user-centered design approach. We concluded the evening with discussions on undiscussed, open topics accompanied by a typical Westphalian dinner.

A workshop on the Theory of Change kicked off our last day. Taking advantage of having so many representatives on site, we followed up with further lively discussions to align the next steps of all I-CISK partners. The general assembly was very intense and exhausting, but at the same time an enormous gain for the project. It was our pleasure to host and attend the meeting in Münster!