ESM2025 General Assembly in Grenoble – May/June 2023
Project participants from 20 partners across 7 countries descended on Grenoble for the 3rd General Assembly of the ESM2025 project. In a game of lottery with train delays and strikes, a contingent of 9 people from the UKESM team and the Met Office made it to the meeting (and mostly back again!).
The packed programme included keynotes from Helene Hewitt (Met Office) on planning CMIP7, and ‘The many facets of snow’ by Marie Dumont (Météo France, CEN); a series of science talks; breakout groups to discuss plans for progressing some of the work packages; project updates; Early Career Researcher career session and the World Café with local stakeholders in Grenoble.
World Café – making our research relevant
How do we make sure that our research is relevant to different stakeholders? The gathering of project members in Grenoble at the end of May for the ESM2025 General Assembly presented the perfect opportunity to engage with local stakeholders through our World Café event. This annual event enables us to understand different climate science needs and discuss new findings from the project and how these may be able to help support decision making at different levels in society.
This year we were delighted to welcome local representatives from Atmo Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, MeteoSwiss, Grenoble Alpes Metropole, an Independent Project Manager, Auki, Piman Consultants, Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Energie Environment Agency, and the National Forestry Office Isere.
The World Café approach involves bringing together local stakeholders with project researchers in small groups around tables for discussion. To prepare for this event the project had defined three areas of discussion relevant to the project and stakeholders were invited to identify specific questions for their particular group.
| Three areas for discussion, and in each area there was one French speaking table and one English speaking table: Topic 1 – Understanding climate change mitigation pathways and their implications to mitigation strategy design Topic 2 – Improving assessment of and response to climate risks. Topic 3 – Scientific knowledge to inform policy-makers, planners, businesses and the general public: needs and challenges |
Importantly, it was the lead stakeholder who was in charge of leading and moderating discussion on each table. The World Café then had three rounds of 30 minutes discussion, where researchers and other stakeholders moved to the next table after each round. Our Early Career researchers provided excellent support through recording the highlights of the conversations and reporting back after the 3 rounds.
“The question is how to incorporate scientific issues into businesses, so that they can change and adapt.” Francois Raffin, Founder & director of Auki
Finally, after receiving the summaries of the lively discussions, participants were able to partake of delicious, locally-prepared vegan cuisine and regional refreshments to round off the evening!
Next, the project team want to consider the detailed discussions and how the project can respond to the issues raised. Initial feedback about the World Café has been really positive and indicated that stakeholders (and researchers) would value continued engagement.
See also Our 2nd World-Café event – Making our research relevant – ESM2025
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