Event summary

Internally, networking and integration were successfully advanced by URPP GCB events: annual retreats, seminars, PhD and postdoc meetings, biannual mini-symposiums, annual dinners and monthly informal meet ups, which strengthened cohesion and scientific exchange.

The Ecosystem Services group led by Owen Petchey with Katherine Horgan, Norman Backhaus, Veruska Muccione, Debra Zuppinger-Dingley, Daniela Braun, Stanislav Ksenofontov, Michael E. Schaepman transversed disciplines to stimulate discussions about benefits of nature to people between 2014 and 2018.

The Cutting-Edge Research Club (CERC) meeting examined recently published articles fundamental to global change and biodiversity research. This meeting was led by PhD students,Fabian Schneider, Sarah Mayor, Alizée Le Moigne, Anubhav Gupta, Simon Landauer.

We developed and organized courses and summer schools for our PhD students as in the Global Change and Biodiversity summer school.

Such events ensured that URPP GCB members had a deep understanding of the aims, structure, and research of the URPP GCB.