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Academic research is largely characterized by scientific projects striving to advance understanding in their respective fields. Financial support is often subject to the fulfilllment of certain requirements, such as a fully developed knowledge transfer (KT) plan and dissemination strategy. However, the evaluation of these activities and their impact is rarely an easy path to clarity and comprehensiveness, considering the different expectations from project officers and funding agencies or dissemination activities and objectives. With this paper, based on the experience of the management and outreach team of the EU-H2020 APPLICATE project, we aim to shed light on the challenging journey towards impact assessment of KT activities by presenting a methodology for impact planning and monitoring in the context of a collaborative and international research project. Through quantitative and qualitative evaluations and indicators developed in 4 years of the project, this paper represents an attempt to build a common practice for project managers and coordinators and establish a baseline for the development of a shared strategy. Our experience found that an assessment strategy should be included in the planning of the project as a key framing step, that the individual project's goals and objectives should drive the definition and assessment of impact and that the researchers involved are crucial to implement a project's outreach strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earth system and climate modelling involves the simulation of processes on a wide range of scales and within and across various compartments of the Earth system. In practice, component models are often developed independently by different research groups, adapted by others to their special interests and then combined using a dedicated coupling software. This procedure not only leads to a strongly growing number of available versions of model components and coupled setups but also to model- and high-performance computing (HPC)-system-dependent ways of obtaining, configuring, building and operating them. Therefore, implementing these Earth system models (ESMs) can be challenging and extremely time consuming, especially for less experienced modellers or scientists aiming to use different ESMs as in the case of intercomparison projects. To assist researchers and modellers by reducing avoidable complexity, we developed the ESM-Tools software, which provides a standard way for downloading, configuring, compiling, running and monitoring different models on a variety of HPC systems. It should be noted that ESM-Tools is not a coupling software itself but a workflow and infrastructure management tool to provide access to increase usability of already existing components and coupled setups. As coupled ESMs are technically the more challenging tasks, we will focus on coupled setups, always implying that stand-alone models can benefit in the same way. With ESM-Tools, the user is only required to provide a short script consisting of only the experiment-specific definitions, while the software executes all the phases of a simulation in the correct order. The software, which is well documented and easy to install and use, currently supports four ocean models, three atmosphere models, two biogeochemistry models, an ice sheet model, an isostatic adjustment model, a hydrology model and a land-surface model. Compared to previous versions, ESM-Tools has lately been entirely recoded in a high-level programming language (Python) and provides researchers with an even more user-friendly interface for Earth system modelling. ESM-Tools was developed within the framework of the Advanced Earth System Model Capacity project, supported by the Helmholtz Association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earth system and climate modelling involves the simulation of processes on a wide range of scales and within and across various components of the Earth system. In practice, component models are often developed independently by different research groups and then combined using a dedicated coupling software. This procedure not only leads to a strongly growing number of available versions of model components and coupled setups but also to model- and system-dependent ways of obtaining and operating them. Therefore, implementing these Earth System Models (ESMs) can be challenging and extremely time-consuming, especially for less experienced modellers, or scientists aiming to use different ESMs as in the case of inter-comparison projects. To assist researchers and modellers by reducing avoidable complexity, we developed the ESM-Tools software, which provides a standard way for downloading, configuring, compiling, running and monitoring different models -- coupled ESMs and stand-alone models alike -- on a variety of High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems. (The ESM-Tools are equally applicable and helpful for stand-alone as for coupled models. In fact, the ESM-Tools are used as standard compile and runtime infrastructure for FESOM2, and currently also applied for ECHAM and ICON standalone simulations. As coupled ESMs are technically the more challenging tasks, we will focus on coupled setups, always implying that stand-alone models can benefit in the same way.) With the ESM-Tools, the user is only required to provide a short script consisting of only the experiment specific definitions, while the software executes all the phases of a simulation in the correct order. The software, which is well documented and easy to install and use, currently supports four ocean models, three atmosphere models, two biogeochemistry models, an ice sheet model, an isostatic adjustment model, a hydrology model and a land-surface model. ESM-Tools has been entirely re-coded in a high-level programming language (Python) and provides researchers with an even more user-friendly interface for Earth system modelling lately. The ESM-Tools were developed within the framework of the project Advanced Earth System Model Capacity, supported by the Helmholtz Association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large part of the project manager's work can be described in terms of retrieving, processing, analysing and synthesizing various types of data from different sources. The types of information become more and more diverse (including participants, task and financial details, and dates) and data volumes continue to increase, especially for large international collaborations. In this paper we explore the possibility of using the python programming language as a tool for retrieving and processing data for some project management tasks. python is a general-purpose programming language with a very rich set of libraries. In recent years python experienced explosive growth leading to development of several libraries that help to efficiently solve many data related tasks without very deep knowledge of programming in general and python in particular. In this paper we present some of the core python libraries that can be used to solve some typical project management tasks and demonstrate several real-world applications using a HORIZON 2020 type European project and as example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic is changing rapidly carrying the potential to influence weather and climate in mid-latitudes. It is therefore crucial to predict these changes and their impacts. Recognizing this priority, a European consortium of scientists set out to advance our capability to predict the weather and climate in the Arctic and beyond in the framework of the EU-funded H2020 project APPLICATE. The project started in 2016 with a budget of 8M€ aims to improve the representation of key processes in coupled atmosphere-sea ice-ocean models, to deliver enhanced numerical weather forecast, seasonal to interannual climate predictions and centennial climate projections. The linkages between the Arctic and mid-latitudes are explored through a coordinated multi-model approach using coupled atmosphere-ocean models. APPLICATE also provides guidance for the design of the future Arctic observing system to improve our capacity to reanalyse the climate system and enhance models' predicting skills. The APPLICATE Consortium is also engaging in collaborations with other programs (e.g., within the EU-funded Arctic Cluster), and the project has also a strong user engagement and training components. In this presentation, we will give an overview of APPLICATE activities and as part of our effort to understand changes in the Arctic and their far-reaching impacts for both environment and communities. We will summarise the main achievements of the project since the start in November 2016 and outline the work of the various task teams until the end of the project in 2020. The results achieved so far demonstrate a vibrant engagement of young researchers in the field of climate science and the role the project plays in forming these scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific software in the form of developed program code is of great importance for geosciences. In climate sciences for example, it constitutes the basis of numerical models used to perform climate experiments. A traditional linear approach to software development, is the waterfall model, based on discrete phases of analysis, design, coding and testing. The phases build on each other and are carried out in a predetermined sequence. While this approach has a high level of planning security, it also entails little flexibility and changes in the requirements can be taken into account only with great difficulty. However, software requirements in scientific projects are often unclear at the start of the software development project and subject to changes at later stages of development making the application of the waterfall model not suitable. Additionally, the iterative procedure that characterises scientific research in general makes an agile procedure more appropriate. Many agile methods and practices have evolved from the foundations of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development (http://agilemanifesto.org/) and are characterised by a continuous comparison of the expectations to the actual state of the software under development, thus offering a much higher flexibility. When managing a research project according to agility principles it is critical that the project manager understands and implements the concept and philosophy of the agile method valuing individuals, interactions and collaboration, and embracing change throughout the entire project.Starting from these considerations and the detailed analysis explained in Wieters and Fritzsch (2018), here we present the specific case of the development of ESM-TOOLS following agile principles. ESM-TOOLS (https://www.esm-tools.net/) is a software developed to unify model infrastructure, giving a common framework for downloading, compiling, running and organising coupled or standalone models. ESM-TOOLS is developed within the Advanced Earth System Modelling Capacity project (ESM), a Helmholtz Association-funded project that aims to improve the representation of the components of the Earth system and their coupling, and perform a series of selected numerical experiments (Frontier Simulations). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earth System models have been developed in the last fifty to sixty years into fundamental tools to understand the earth system as well as interactions between its different compartments - how they influence each other, and thus providing useful instruments to study, comprehend and predict natural phenomena. Nonetheless, further steps are still to be made in order to significantly impact decision-making and offer solutions to urgent issues like climate change, food and water supply as well geoenergy resources and waste management. The project Advanced Earth System Modelling Capacity (ESM) was initiated in April 2017 funded by the Helmholtz Association with the objective to develop, evaluate and apply a world-leading Earth system modelling framework to offer answers and solutions to pressing questions related to the earth system. By working on further model development, data assimilation, frontier simulations and strategic development, the ESM project merges the different expertise of its partners to develop an innovative and comprehensive approach to Earth system modelling.In this presentation we will give an overview of the goals and structure of the ESM project as well as the contribution to earth system modelling research, the highlights and results after two years of the project and briefly introducing the plans for the upcoming activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]