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.

The “Climate Predictability and Inter-Regional Linkages” and “Mountains as Sentinels of Change” calls for pre-proposals will close on June 1, 2015 at 11:59 pm UTC.

This call aims to contribute to the overall challenge of developing climate services with a focus on inter-regional linkages role in climate variability and predictability.

This call aims to foster research on climate, environmental, and related societal change in mountain regions, considering new measurements, recovery of existing data, and the development and use of integrated modelling strategies by adopting a strong trans- and inter-disciplinary approach.

The successful projects and research teams include participants and support from Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Greenland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the US. Research teams include a breadth of stakeholders, including indigenous communities, local governments, industry, and NGOs.