Ten simple rules for curating and facilitating small workshops

As a participant, workshops are by far my favorite scientific event. Compared to conferences, the interactions can be more intense, discussions can be deeper, and the resulting collaborations are often stronger. Working with 10–30 attendees over a few days can lead to a more open and integrated event than a conference. At workshops, you are a participant in the whole event, and you can make many direct contributions to its goals. In contrast, at conferences, the aim is for a broad informational in which you are part of the audience and contribute comparatively little content

Integrating knowledge accross disciplines. Experiences from the NeWater project

The starting question for this deliverable was how to create a new adaptive management concept that can integrate insights from various disciplines and connect people from different institutional backgrounds. From literature research and empirical research on the NeWater project we identified challenges for cross-disciplinary knowledge integration, we evaluated interventions for connecting multiple knowledge frames, we analyzed the process of group model building with UML and formulated recommendations. Cross-disciplinary research has arisen from a growing number of complex problems for which knowledge of a single scientific discipline or societal field is insufficient, but presents important challenges: (1) collaboration and integration of knowledge requires in depth discussions that are timeconsuming; (2) the recursive process of problem structuring and restructuring is often at odds with the sequential planning of project activities; (3) participation and mutual learning are crucial but need to be carefully structured and sequenced; and (4) management and leadership faces the difficult challenge of balancing in depth exploration with timely delivery of tangible results. We conclude with the following general recommendations for large cross-disciplinary projects: (1) including a preparatory proposal phase for thorough exploration of opportunities of between researchers and stakeholders (2) flexible funding, planning and operational arrangements to allow for a recursive research process; (3) a project size that allows frequent interaction opportunities between researchers and between researchers and stakeholders to allow for mutual learning and in depth exploration; and (4) enhancing learning opportunities from one project to the next

Public participation and controversy involving science: an Irish perspective

In the past few years public participation programmes, such as consensus conferences and citizen juries, have become popular in many countries that want to explore ways to increase the involvement o f their citizens in policy making involving controversial science. Such initiatives aim to bring social and moral issues to policy discussions that are often dominated by scientific and technical information. This is not to undermine the importance of scientific expertise, but to broaden the discussion of issues involving science that are increasingly of interest to members o f the general public and interest groups. However, for these public participation initiatives to be legitimate they must have clear comiections to the policy-making process. The two Irish case studies that I have used to illustrate the current level o f public involvement in policy making and the willingness o f the Irish political culture to incorporate social and moral issues into the policy-making process were genetically modified (GM) foods and water fluoridation. This thesis analyses three Irish consultation processes: the Department o f Environment and Local Government’s National Public Consultation on genetically modified organisms and the environment; BioResearch Ireland’s BioDivulga Stakeholder Workshop; and the Department of Health and Children’s Forum on Fluoridation. In the past it has been difficult to compare public participation programmes because of the different goals and cultures o f different countries. To overcome this comparative difficulty I developed a framework to take these differences into account. My research found that there are a range o f Irish citizens and interest groups who have social and moral concerns surrounding GM foods and water fluoridation but the consultation procedures adopted by the relevant government departments were not adequate to explore these concerns. However there are indications that the Irish government is willing to explore new public participation initiatives. What remains to be seen is how such initiatives will be incorporated into Ireland’s current political culture, which views science as the dominant authority

Culture and disaster risk management - synthesis of citizens’ reactions and opinions during 6 Citizen Summits : Romania, Malta, Italy, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands

The analyses and results in this document are based on the data collected during six Citizen Summits held in A) Romania (Bucharest) on July 9th, 2016 B) Malta on July 16th, 2016 C) Italy (Rome) on June 17th, 2017 D) Germany (Frankfurt) on June 24th, 2017 E) Portugal (Lisbon) April 14th, 2018 F) The Netherlands (Utrecht)on May 12th, 2018. All Citizen Summits were designed as one-day events combining public information with feedback gathering through different methods of data collection, as laid out in Deliverable D5.1 (Structural design & methodology for Citizen Summits). A total of 619 citizens participated in the six events. In the morning session, the Citizen Summits started with a presentation of the CARISMAND project and its main goals and concepts. Then, several sets of questions with pre-defined answer options were posed to the audience and responses collected via an audience response system. All questions in this part of the event aimed to explore citizens’ attitudes, perceptions, and intended behaviours related to disasters and disaster risks. Between these sets of questions, additional presentations were held that informed the audience about state-of-the-art disaster preparedness and response topics (e.g., large-scale disaster scenario exercises, use of social media and mobile phone apps), as well as CARISMAND research findings. Furthermore, the last round of Citizen Summits (CS5 in Lisbon and CS6 in Utrecht) were organised and designed to additionally discuss and collect feedback on recommendations for citizens, which have all been formulated on the basis of Work Packages 2-10 results and in coordination with the Work Package 11 brief. These Toolkit recommendations will form one of the core elements of the Work Package 9 CARISMAND Toolkit. In the afternoon session of each event, small moderated group discussions (with 8-12 participants each) of approximately 2 hours’ duration were held, which aimed to gather citizens’ direct feedback on the topics presented in the morning sessions, following a detailed discussion guideline. For a detailed overview of all questions asked and topics discussed, please see Appendices A-1 to A-3. The rest of this report is structured in six main sections: After the executive summary and this introduction, the third section will present an overview of the different methods applied. The fourth section will provide a synthesis of quantitative and qualitative data collected during all Citizen Summits. The fifth section will present the evaluation of CARISMAND Toolkit recommendations for citizens, followed by a final concluding chapter.The project was co-funded by the European Commission within the Horizon2020 Programme (2014-2020).peer-reviewe

Handbook of good practices for participation in Codex Alimentarius meetings.

Índice: 1 Descripción de la organización. 2 Funcionamiento de los comités del CODEX. 3 Procedimientos internos. 4 Documentos del Codex Alimentarius. 5 Proceso de trámites para la aprobación de documentos en el Codex Alimentarius. 6 Cómo prepararse antes de las reuniones? 7 Cómo preparo mis intervenciones para cada punto de agenda? 8 La reunión.Publicado en inglés y español.Este documento es un manuel de buenas prácticas de participación en las reuniones del Codex Alimentarius, el cual presenta una descripción de la organización Codex Alimentarius, sus principios, estructura y la importancia del Codex Alimentarious para el país. Además se presentan los procedimientos internos, como lo son actas, quórum, presentación de propuestas, entre otras. Igualmente presenta los documentos que genera el Codex Alimentarius y cuál es el proceso para la aprobación de documentos de esta organización.This document is a manual of good practices for participation in Codex Alimentarius meetings, which presents a description of the Codex Alimentarius organization, its principles, structure and the importance of Codex Alimentarious for the country. In addition, the internal procedures are presented, such as minutes, quorum, presentation of proposals, among others. It also presents the documents generated by the Codex Alimentarius and what is the process for the approval of documents of this organization

An Evening Spent with Bill van Zwet

Willem Rutger van Zwet was born in Leiden, the Netherlands, on March 31, 1934. He received his high school education at the Gymnasium Haganum in The Hague and obtained his Masters degree in Mathematics at the University of Leiden in 1959. After serving in the army for almost two years, he obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Amsterdam in 1964, with Jan Hemelrijk as advisor. In 1965, he was appointed Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Leiden and promoted to Full Professor in 1968. He remained in Leiden until his retirement in 1999, while also serving as Associate Professor at the University of Oregon (1965), William Newman Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1990--1996), frequent visitor and Miller Professor (1997) at the University of California at Berkeley, director of the Thomas Stieltjes Institute of Mathematics in the Netherlands (1992--1999), and founding director of the European research institute EURANDOM (1997--2000). At Leiden, he was Dean of the School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (1982--1984). He served as chair of the scientific council and member of the board of the Mathematics Centre at Amsterdam (1983--1996) and the Leiden University Fund (1993--2005).Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/08-STS261 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org