Dear all,
We at IIASA are already very excited to see you soon and to kick off the new school year together!
We wanted to inform you that the meeting location has changed. The meeting will now be held at Webster Vienna Private University, Praterstraße 24, 1020 Vienna. This is a very central location, and given the collaborative, writing-focused style of the meeting, we thought a classroom setting with whiteboards, projectors, and breakout spaces would be ideal. Since this meeting will be work-intensive, kindly ensure you bring your laptop and charger. We will provide continuous coffee/tea and snacks (thus no clear coffee breaks) and teams take breaks as needed, and if you need to take a meeting, there will also be space available for focused work.
There are plenty of nice hotels and Airbnb options nearby if you would like to adjust your accommodation. Otherwise, the venue is easily accessible from Hauptbahnhof (U1 line).
Regarding social activities, we plan to focus on urban CDR and then also some communication training for policy briefs — more details will follow soon. We also suggest bringing yoga pants and/or running gear for some informal exercise sessions (more infos also to follow).
While the agenda is still subject to minor changes, we wanted to share the more detailed preliminary plan with you (and what you could prepare before the meeting).
As discussed during our GENIE meetings, the idea is to hold a writing-focused meeting (but can also be data analysis etc.). We will start with a brief plenary session where paper leads can pitch their paper idea, followed by dedicated time to work on the papers in smaller groups.
The papers can be at different stages of development, and the goals of each group may vary. For example, if a paper is already at an advanced stage, the group lead might assign others to review specific sections. If it's still in an early phase, the team may choose to reframe the research question based on initial feedback from the full consortium etc. We have designed the meeting format to be interactive and flexible, with a balance between focused group work and opportunities for broader feedback from all participants. We will also make sure that related paper groups are spatially close to each other so that there is an opportunity to discuss some things across groups.
At the top of the agenda<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WFWbamSuP_BDH_7qEufpQRg8aLwSsmCF/edit?u…>, I have included a preliminary group allocation based on the preferences that all of you submitted earlier. Please review this and feel free to make adjustments — team members can also switch groups on site. There's no obligation to stick to the proposed groups, and this setup does not affect authorship in any way, as many of you will be co-authors across multiple papers.
Next Steps:
If the paper leads are happy with the proposed structure, it would be great if you could prepare a 5-minute pitch for your paper to present at the beginning of the meeting. These pitches should briefly cover:
* The research question
* Expected outcomes of the paper
* What you would like to accomplish during the meeting (where do you need support from others at this stage)
I have created a <https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c7DmiuyljCykXfxPDjGy4fDxHEO_4Wwp?us…> Google Drive folder<https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c7DmiuyljCykXfxPDjGy4fDxHEO_4Wwp?us…> where you can upload your pitch presentations, any drafts, and relevant literature you would like others to review ahead of or during the meeting.
We have also scheduled the usual round of updates from all teams at the beginning of the meeting. Please keep these brief and focus on recent publications and upcoming papers that might be of interest to others.
In addition, we have set aside some time to reflect on the remaining deliverables — this is simply to ensure that the papers we are proposing are aligned with what is still needed.
Please feel free to comment on the agenda and also let me know in case I forgot to include someone!
Best regards,
Elina on behalf of IIASA team
