The eLTER Sites and Platforms Forum
What is the eLTER Sites and Platforms Forum about?
LTER sites and platforms distributed across Europe make up the backbone of the developing eLTER Research Infrastructure. The coordinators of these facilities form one of the most important shareholder groups of eLTER.
The eLTER Sites and Platforms Forum (SPF) aims to build and strengthen a community of site and platform coordinators, and to make it easier to develop and communicate joint activities (e.g. training) that benefit this community.
The Sites and Platforms Forum also enables co-design and co-creation of the future working environment at eLTER Sites and eLTSER Platforms at the national and European scale. This includes, for example, identifying the services and tools eLTER should provide.
The inputs from sites and platform coordinators and from National Research Infrastructures are key contributions to the eLTER ESFRI process. The Sites and Platforms Forum is a predecessor of a permanent advisory body in the developing eLTER RI.
Who is involved in the SPF?
Site and Platform Coordinators (SPCs), also known as primary investigators, site managers, site coordinators or LTSER platform managers, are a very heterogeneous group of people responsible for a wide range of activities on sites and platforms.
SPCs have roles beyond management and infrastructure leadership, specifically reaching into the science domain. As well as managing the operations at their sites or platforms, many SPCs are also practising research scientists.
The roles and job profiles of SPCs are diverse and may also vary across countries and institutions. They can cover, for example:
persons taking responsibility for sites and platforms in their entirety (often, but not always reflected by a formal mandate)
individuals having the best overview of a local site or a platform
persons with an informal mandate to “speak for or represent the site or platform”
key persons critical for keeping sites or platforms up and running, but also those contributing in essential ways to their development, which may involve all or several of the following:
- lobbying and internal/external fundraising
- scientific leadership
- connecting disciplinary work and teams
- coordination of site/platform data and metadata
- writing or co-writing synthesis papers related to the site
- making strategic decisions concerning observational design, instrumentation or other forms of development at the sites.
- fielding questions concerning site involvement in European scale RIs
Co-design of eLTER key elements
Sites and platform coordinators (SPCs) are involved in many aspects of eLTER. Here are some key elements of eLTER that have been co-created and co-designed with the help of SPCs. During the co-design process, the requirements and needs of both the SPCs and eLTER are jointly identified and then iteratively co-designed, validated and implemented.
Upcoming Activities
Past Events
Get in Touch
If you want to get in touch with peers and exchange ideas or experiences, you’re warmly welcome to join the Sites and Platforms Forum (SPF) mailing list and our regular zoom meetings. Just send a message to office@elter-ri.eu
Your Sites and Platforms Forum Team
Paulina Rajewicz
University of Helsinki, Finland
Theresa Lumpi
Swedish University of Agricultural Science
Terhi Rasilo
University of Helsinki, Finland
Blaize Denfield
Swedish University of Agricultural Science