wp5

Activities carried out.

WP5 was designed to implement and maintain the central project management structures, including administrative, logistic and financial issues, monitor progress and control quality of the project against the workplan and its milestones and deliverables, enable effective information flow, communication between the partners and proper decision-making within the consortium, manage risks and resolve potential problems, ensure high quality reporting to the Program Operator and disseminate knowledge to interested parties. All milestones and deliverables were achieved in time. The kick-off meeting at the beginning of the project was organized by the University of Bergen on 12th – 14th March 2014, the first annual meeting was organized by University of Warsaw and took place in Białowieża, Poland on 23rd – 25th March 2015. The second annual meeting, organized by NIBIO in cooperation with the University of Bergen took place in Tromsø, Norway on 04th – 07th April 2016 and was followed by a one-day “paper planning workshop” resulting in a list of potential participatory papers to be written, with teams of authors assigned to each planned manuscript. The last meeting, combined with the final conference of the project, took place in Chęciny near Kielce on 24th – 27th January 2017 and was organized by University of Warsaw in cooperation with University of Jan Kochanowski in Kielce. The meeting was followed by a one-week cooperative synthesis writing session in Białowieża. The project implementation went smoothly – without any conflicts or problems which would need intervention from the management team or participatory solving of problems. The field work was organized each season by the team responsible for each site (Tatry Mts. and Białowieża Forest by University of Warsaw, Scandes and Norwegian forests by NIBIO). The knowledge dissemination took place on four levels: open scientific conference and seminar organized by KlimaVeg team, communicating of the results at national and international conferences/workshops external to KlimaVeg project (over 30 presentations and posters in total), media communications and participation in the conferences organized by the Project Operator, and production of leaflets about the project. Contact with the Project Operator was smooth and all reports were submitted on time. Several members of the research team took part in the conferences organized by the Project Operator.

 Results achieved.

The scientific results of the KlimaVeg project were published in over 20 scientific papers, out of which several papers were published in the journals from the first quartile in category “Ecology” (e.g.: Applied Vegetation Science, Nature). The results were also communicated on conferences in the form of oral presentations and posters. The KlimaVeg project, Polish Norwegian Research Programme and Norwegian Financial Mechanism were promoted via the organization of the two scientific conferences: discussing methodological and theoretical background of the project (Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw, 30thOctober 2015) and disseminating results achieved by the project team (Chęciny by Kielce, Poland, 24th-27th Janury 2017). It is worth stressing that at the final conference the results of the project were communicated to 50 participants, including practitioners in the field of nature conservation (from 10 Polish national parks), researchers from the forestry sector (members of Forest Research Institute and forest faculties from Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Agricultural University in Kraków and University of Life Sciences in Poznań) and practitioners working in forest management planning (workers of the Forest Management Planning Office in Białystok). Additionally the project was promoted at conferences organized by the Project Operator (23rd April 2014 in Warsaw and 19th-20th November 2015 in Sopot, Poland). The Polish-Norwegian Research Programme was promoted also by the Department of Innovation and Transfer Technology of Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce at the International Exhibition of Innovation and New Technologies INNO-TECH EXPO 2015 (15-16.09.2015, Kielce, Poland) (http://www.ujk.edu.pl/news/?id=3454&c=24) and in Norway by NIBIO at the conference in Bergen (12th – 13th May 2015). Additionally four members of the UW research team took part in Orlen Warsaw Marathon 2015 (26th April 2015) as the KlimaVeg team, promoting actively the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, Polish-Norwegian Research Programme and the project. The coordinator of the project and one PI from NIBIO were interviewed by a journalist of the largest Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten (http://www.aftenposteninnsikt.no/klimamilj/den-siste-urskog).

Two leaflets promoting the project were produced during the project framework: one concentrating on the existing scientific background and research plans (beginning of 2015) and one summarizing main findings of the project (January 2017). Each issue was printed in Polish, English and Norwegian versions in language suitable for a general audience, 250 copies each. The project webpage www.klimaveg.pl includes information about project activities and results.

This project strengthened an existing Norway-Poland collaborative link (between A. Eycott and B. Jaroszewicz) as well as created several new working relationships, which will endure beyond the lifetime of the project. Joint field missions in all locations have enabled interchange of knowledge, skills, ideas and information. The wider project network now incorporates four countries and eight scientific institutions (University in Warsaw, University of Gdańsk, University of Jan Kochanowski in Kielce and University of Wrocław from Poland, University of Bergen and Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research from Norway, Cambridge University from United Kingdom and WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF from Switzerland).

The project gathered competence for research on vegetation response to global change, unifying experts from universities and research institution across Norway and Poland. Meetings and joint field campaigns allowed expert knowledge exchange in the field of botany and methods of the field work. Many project members took the opportunity to improve their research skills (especially in the field of statistical analyses and language) and knowledge (in field of botany). It resulted in strengthening and broadening research background and competence of all teams involved. Very valuable were joint meetings, discussions and field work of botanists (vascular plant specialists) with bryologists and lichenologists, which allowed understanding of differences and similarities in research methods. The project strengthened relations between project partners, which owing to positive experience on collaboration resulted in collaborative application of the new project aimed on assessment of the time lag between the climate change and reaction of plant species.