Deliverable No. 7.12 Second summary report of stakeholder interaction activities

The main objective of the APPLICATE project is to develop enhanced predictive capacity for weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond, and to determine the influence of Arctic climate change on the Northern Hemisphere. To produce usable and trustworthy predictive information for decision-making, APPLICATE actively engages with stakeholders, including representatives of various economic sectors and local communities.

This deliverable describes the different stakeholder interaction activities that have been undertaken in the last 18 months (from May 2018 to October 2019), including the meetings with the APPLICATE User Group, the interactions with stakeholders when attending relevant events, the development of case studies and the participation in the blog Polar Prediction Matters (PPM).

The User Group is composed of representatives from all the APPLICATE targeted stakeholder groups1, including Arctic business and governmental stakeholders, local and indigenous communities, NGOs, meteorological and climatological services, the scientific community and business stakeholders from mid-latitudes. The fourth meeting of the APPLICATE User Group was held online in July 2018. The meeting was aimed to discuss the topics that the APPLICATE consortium could tackle and provide expertise and added value for, taking into account all the topics that were identified in the previous User Group meetings. This meeting was preceded by a preparatory meeting between WP7 partners and other scientific partners from the other technical WPs (WP1, WP2, WP3 and WP5).

Other chances to interact with stakeholders were provided through attendance to relevant events about the Arctic. WP7 partners attended and participated in various activities in the framework of the China-Nordic Arctic Research Seminars in Tromsø (Norway) in May 2018 the Polar2018 conference in Davos (Switzerland) in June 2018, the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik (Iceland) in October 2018 and October 2019, the ACI 13th Arctic Shipping Conference in Hamburg (Germany) in December 2018, the Korea Arctic Week in Busan (South Korea) in December 2018, the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø (Norway) in January 2019, The Arctic Circle China Forum in Shanghai (China) in May 2019, and the Northern Forum Sustainable Development Forum in Yakutsk (Russia) September 2019.

All the described stakeholder interaction activities are key to identify and gather information on knowledge gaps in the Arctic. This is important in order to define what are the user-relevant variables and metrics that the APPLICATE project should focus on and to select which are the most relevant case studies2 to illustrate how to move, with maximum impact, from project outputs to stakeholders’ decision-making. So far, case studies addressed to the energy and risk prevention sectors have been developed and shared with stakeholders at Arctic Circle Assembly, in October 2019. In addition, the participation of APPLICATE in the PPM blog, run by the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), also provides the project a unique chance to interact with other stakeholders.