Read the first MARCIS Newsletter for project progress and highlights.
Dear reader,
Welcome to the MARCIS newsletter! This newsletter will be used to update project partners, stakeholders and other interested parties on the progress and highlights of the MARCIS project.
After its launch in November 2021, MARCIS has held a number of important meetings. Project partners met for the first time at the project kick-off meeting in November 2021, the first Stakeholder meeting was held this February, and the first Steering Committee meeting was held in March. We have had many fruitful discussions about project expectations and contributions, data availability and resolution, uncertainty, validation, transparency, and usability of the MARCIS App. The project has also had good progress in the start-up period with core-project group meetings and a coordination workshop to assure a good workflow between the different work packages. The last core-project group meeting was held at Rotvoll in Trondheim in March. We hope that these early meetings are an indication of the good collaboration between project partners and stakeholders in the years to come!
Other early achievements of the project have been the launch of our website, and social media profiles on Twitter and Facebook. We will use these channels actively to inform about project progress and key achievements as the project runs forward. MARCIS has also been presented at various scientific and industry meetings, such as the annual SEATRACK workshop, a meeting at the Faglig Forum for Norske Havområder, the annual meeting at the FramCenter and different conferences on offshore wind hosted by NOROG, Norwea, Norwegian Offshore Wind, WWF and Friends of the Earth Norway.
The next months will be spent on collecting and preparing relevant data on both seabird distribution and overlaps with the different stressors, seabird demographic data, setting up the modelling frameworks, work on the initial analysis, the initial set up of the MARCIS app, and initiation of the radar work. Two post-doc positions have been advertised within WP2 and WP3. We received a total of 22 applications for the two positions and are now in the process of selecting candidates. Interviews will take place during the spring, and both positions will be filled on the 1st of September. We look forward to welcoming these new team members to the project!
MARCIS depends heavily on data collected from two large national seabird monitoring programs in Norway, SEAPOP and SEATRACK. Many of our project participants are members of these programs and will take part in the upcoming fieldwork on key seabird sites along the coast from May to August. During the field season we will post glimpses of how the seabird data used in the MARCIS project is collected. Stay tuned!
Best wishes,
Tone Kristin Reiertsen (MARCIS project leader)
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