This week at the European Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in Vienna, Belmont Forum funded research into global challenges of food and freshwater security, resilience in the Arctic and mountainous regions, coastal vulnerability, and biodiversity are on display. Information about current awards, the Forum’s new open data policy, and future Forum events is available. Secretariat staff are on hand for all other questions.

Representatives from across food production, food safety, governance, and research and development funding sectors came together in Addis Ababa at the African Union Conference Center to discuss implementation of the new EU-Africa roadmap for food security. The focus was on co-development of activities, bringing farming and processing practitioners together with academics, technologists, and bi-regional funding and management directors from both private and public concerns.

Six multi-national projects have been selected for funding through this call. The successful projects involve researchers from Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, and the USA, with additional collaborators from Belgium, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan, Morocco, and Sweden.

The principles were developed as part of a collaborative effort initiated by the Belmont Forum, with input from more than 120 international researchers, computer and information scientists, legal scholars, and social scientists, to develop a plan for creating an internationally coordinated and data-intensive e-Infrastructure for global environmental change research.

At the 2015 plenary meeting, the Belmont Forum agreed on and adopted an open data policy and principles. The principles were drafted as part of a collaborative scoping effort initiated by the Belmont Forum and involving over 120 domain scientists, computer and information scientists, legal scholars, social scientists, and other experts from more than fourteen countries. The new policy signals a commitment to increasing access to scientific data by funders of global environmental change research.

Representatives from 30 funding agencies, ministries, and multi-national organizations met in Oslo last week at the 10th plenary meeting of the Belmont Forum. The members, partners, and guests were welcomed by Fridtjof Unander, Executive Director of the Division for Energy, Resources, and the Environment at the Research Council of Norway. Discussion centered on flexible methods of international collaboration to advance key global change research areas.

Next week in Oslo, Norway, the members and partners of the Belmont Forum will meet to discuss the adaptation and resilience needs of vulnerable communities. These scientific grand challenges benefit not only from the shared expertise of natural scientists, social scientists, and engaged stakeholders but also the collaborative support of multiple funding agencies and organizations.

The meeting will focus on Belmont Forum governance and operations, updates from on-going Collaborative Research Actions, discussions of potential new Collaborative Research Actions, information exchange, and the Belmont Forum’s relationships with other global change research organizations, such as Future Earth.

High tides combined with super saturated ground and rising seas resulted in substantial flooding in South Florida last week, just in time to greet Al Gore and the Climate Reality Conference in Miami. Parking lots flooded and roads turned into rivers while top scientists and stakeholders met to address the very near term effects of climate change. One team of researchers at the conference from Florida International University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication is working to educate tomorrow’s communicators how best to bring climate change and South Florida’s rising seas into global conversations.

From Nin Brudermann, innovative artist and adventurer. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Austria, and at the Global Climate Conference in Geneva.