Meet & Greet Research Cluster XIII big success!

In his short introduction Professor Paul Opdam (who coordinates this cluster together with Dolf de Groot) welcomed a nicely mixed group of interested (PhD-)researchers and professors from Delft (UNESCO-IHE), Nijmegen (RU), Utrecht (UU), Amsterdam (VU-IVM) and Wageningen (WUR) to the kick-off meeting of Research Cluster XIII. He introduced the research cluster as a platform and a network for SENSE researchers, and PhD students in particular, to exchange information and stimulate cooperation in a coherent research field. To illustrate in what way the cluster could be useful, Paul gave some examples that stimulated the discussion on what activities / services the cluster should be able to provide. After defining the aims of the afternoon, Paul furthermore emphasised that the research cluster can only become successful if everyone participates actively: the cluster - that is us!

However, to make it a bit easier to communicate who we actually are, Paul proposed the new name for Research Cluster XIII, which “survived” the discussions during the rest of the day and, in our opinion, describes quite nicely what the cluster is all about: “Spatial development and sustainability of ecosystems and landscapes”.

Next in the schedule were the “speed dates”, and these one-on-one very brief discussions (2 minutes each) were very much appreciated by the participants; it forces you to describe in very little words what your research is about and provides an excellent way to go to know eachother. We would recommend it to anyone trying to convene for the first time; our participants actually couldn’t get enough of this informal “ice-breaker”!

Dolf de Groot started his presentation with repeating the suggested name of the research cluster. He also put down the question whether the name of the cluster should be determined by the content, or the other way around. To help the discussion about this, 3 suggested sub-themes of the cluster were presented:
1.    Ecological processes, mapping & modelling (of multi-functional ecosystems and landscapes) - Resilience of ecosystems & landscapes / adapting to climate change;
2.    Socio-economic values and perceptions (of multi-functional ecosystems and landscapes) - Human interests & values (linked to services) / landscape as a socio-ecological system;
3.    Planning, management and decision-making for multi-functional landscapes - planning and assessment of environmental policies / governing physical change.

Although the participants came from various institutes all over the country, it appeared during the speed dates that in general the first two sub-themes were more heavily represented. However, we cannot be sure about whether this group was representative enough of the whole research cluster. Dolf also put the sub-themes forward to initiate a discussion on the appropriateness of the sub-themes with the question “Do you think you belong to (one of) the boxes?” The overall consensus was that, on the one hand, we should not focus too much on clustering within the cluster itself (could lead to “cluster-tiredness”) and, on the other hand, that we need to look into the arrows between the boxes; why are theses boxes separated, how can the be connected and by whom?

The most important outcomes of the afternoon were: 1) We will definitely continue & 2) We look out for the coming activities in the (very) near future!

Some ideas for activities are:

- Visits to different SENSE institutes on a regular basis, during which researchers will have the opportunity to meet “partners in crime” and to present their work in short presentation sessions.
- Informal meetings: dinners / drinks, for instance after having visited the institutes.
- Paper discussion sessions: on recently published and upcoming papers.

The meeting ended with some drinks & bites in the wonderful “in-door garden” of the Lumen building of Wageningen University. At the end of the evening about twenty enthusiastic researchers parted agreeing that Research Cluster XIII, focusing on “Spatial development and sustainability of ecosystems and landscapes” had made a successful start!

We look forward on meeting new faces during our next event, an interactive meeting at the IVM in Amsterdam!

On behalf of the participants,

Katalin Petz & Alexander van Oudenhoven