On April 11th, the SITES leadership team, formed by the Secretariat, Station Managers and Thematic Programs Leads, gathered for a full-day meeting at the World Trade Center in Stockholm. The day was filled with productive discussions around several key topics that are central for the future of SITES. One major focus was a self-assessment of the work carried out across the network, with the goal of evaluating the achievements and identifying areas for growth and improvement.
Another significant part of the meeting was the opportunity to hear from Tomas Roslin, ecology Professor at SLU and the University of Helsinki. He gave an inspiring presentation about Lifeplan, an ambitious project to assess the current state of global biodiversity through standardized sampling, aiming to create the most comprehensive dataset on biological diversity to date. SITES played a major role in this project, with all its stations participating in data collection and contributing a substantial amount of biological data from Sweden. After the presentation, the team had a lively discussion about the legacy of LifePlan, which is now approaching its conclusion, and explored how SITES might continue the sampling efforts initiated at its stations.
This meeting also marked the first in-person meeting for Dolly Kothawala, the new Station Manager at the Erken Laboratory. It was a pleasure to welcome her into the team.
A big thank you to all participants for making the event such a success!
The SITES Leadership Group at Stockholm World trade Center (photo: Holger Villwock)
Tomas Roslin presents his work in the Lifeplan project (photo: holger Villwock)