Si-WEBS (Training)

Si-WEBS
Natural and anthropogenic modifications of the Si cycle along the land-ocean continuum: Worldwide Ecological, Biogeochemical and Socio-economical consequences

Updated on June 3, 2003

Si-WEBS related Training

The objective of Si-WEBS is to educate a new generation of young researchers in an area of research that is important to societal needs. Important scientific questions regarding the Si biogeochemical cycle will be integrated into a human perspective, by evaluating the impacts of natural and anthropogenic perturbations of the coastal Si cycle into
(a) the ecology of coastal ecosystems,
(b) the socio-economics of the coastal zone, and
(c) the biogeochemistry of the global Si and C cycles.

Individual training will be provided by hosting young researchers in groups with well-recognized expertise in their field of research. All young researchers will make at least one extended visit to another participating institution for participation in courses, perform joint experiments, possibly cruises and improve personal education through extended discussions around joint tasks.

The specific measures that will be taken concerning the common training of Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers, as well as other staff working on the project, include:

1) Summer school. A summer school will be offered in the beginning of the project, after all young researchers have been appointed. It will consist of a series of lectures primarily by the senior scientists in this network. In addition, Ph.D. students and the Post-Docs in the network will be encouraged to present their work as well. This summer school should aim to bring everybody up to approximately the same basic understanding of all the issues. These lectures should take into account the multi-disciplinary experience of the participants.

2) Workshops. Four annual workshops will follow until the end of the network. At these workshops the work carried out in the project will be presented and discussed. Presentations by Ph.D. students and Post-Docs will be strongly encouraged. Presentations by young researchers in a workshop setting are absolutely necessary to learn broader communication skills in a small, friendly setting. The mid-term workshop represents a key milestone in the course of Si-WEBS, both in terms of scientific deliverables (Tables 2 and 3) and training. Indeed, during this workshop, all the young researchers will form a team and will define the scenarios to be tested during the third year by means of the coupled model which needs to be ready by month 24 (Table 2). Additional training will be made at the first workshop with a session regarding publications and authorship (Nature. 1991. 352:187; Nature. 1999. 399:393) and at the second workshop a session specifically targeted towards young researchers will be held regarding proposal writing (NERI will be responsible for these tasks).

3) Specialised workshops and courses. A series of topical modules will be planned, which will be given immediately before or after each general workshop. One example of topic which will be adressed is: "Environmental Economics and Management", given by Prof. Dr. Richard S.J. Tol and Dr. David J. Maddison, both at Hamburg University. Specialized workshops will also be held on topics such as: "Combining experimental work, data base exploitation and modeling in environmental sciences", which will be held at Uni-HB in year 3 and will probably be widely open to the scientific community.

4) Training sessions on specialized instruments. This includes, for example, a 2-days session on using the PANGAEA data base (held at Uni-HB), or a 1 week session on the use of microcosms for the parameterization of models (held at ULB).

info@pangaea.de