The TPO (NERC) held a mid-term projects meeting alongside the ‘Deltas in Times of Change II’ conference in Rotterdam on September 23, 2014.  The Belmont Forum projects were joined by four aligned EU projects funded under FP-7.

The meeting was attended by 37 participants, which included:

• 18 Belmont Forum funded projects representatives (including six LPIs);
• 9 EU funded projects representatives;
• 2 project stakeholders (Institute of Water Modelling, Bangladesh)
• 6 GPC members (DFG, CSIRO, ANR, NSF, NERC, FAPESP)
• Peer Review Panel Chair
• Workshop facilitator

Welcome introductions were given by Patrick Monfray (ANR, Co-Chair Belmont Forum), Pier Vellinga (Peer Review Panel Chair) and Eleni Manoli (EC).  Representatives from each of the projects gave presentations.  Two parallel workshop sessions took place in the afternoon, one of which focused on ‘Feedback and lessons learnt to the Belmont Forum’, and the second around identifying ‘Cross-cutting themes, project outputs and stakeholders’.  Five of the seven Belmont Forum projects then stayed on for the Deltas scientific conference, presenting a range of posters, talks, and leading on scientific sessions.

The meeting can be viewed as very successful.  There was a lot of engagement and enthusiasm from all attendees and GPC members.  Project leaders viewed this is a really positive addition, enabling participants to network and make links across subjects, regions and in their methodologies.  Participants were keen to share knowledge and learning and use the benefit of each other’s experiences.  The meeting was a positive start to the development of a community focused on the issue of coastal vulnerability.  Both workshop sessions identified a lot of information for the Belmont Forum to consider.

View project presentations:

Introduction
ARTisticc
ASTARTE
BanD-AID
DELTAS
GULLS
MAGIC
Metropole
RISC-KIT
RISES-AM
TRUC