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Research School for Socio-Economic and
Natural Sciences of the Environment
SENSE e-News
    Newsletter December
30 November 2016
Table of contents
Editorial
SENSE News
Vegetables from Mars receives Klokhuis Science prize 2016 ››
Philip Ward (IVM-VU) in the Environmental Science Journal for Teens: How much do we really know about river flooding? ››
Joyeeta Gupta (UNESCO-IHE) announced co-chair of GEO-6 ››
UNESCO-IHE emeritus prof. Bart Schultz wins world irrigation prize 2016 for unmatched contribution to the field of irrigation and drainage ››
NVBM Award for Bert Holtslag ››
SENSE PhD Blogs
Outreach in the Caribbean - Blogpost by Jetske Vaas and Elizabeth Haber (UU) ››
Upcoming PhD Graduations
Overview of PhD graduations upcoming period ››
Upcoming Courses
Making an Impact! How to increase the societal relevance of your PhD research, 8-9 February 2017 ››
Grasping Sustainability, 13-17 March 2017 ››
A1 SENSE Introductory Course, 29-31 March 2017 ››
Overview of PhD / postdoc courses December-February ››
Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses ››
Discussion Groups
R Users Discussion Group Meeting, 14 December ››
Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminars (WEES), 15 December ››
Upcoming Events
International Symposium Nutrient pollution in water systems: Sustainable solutions for Europe, China and the world, 14 December 2016 ››
Overview of upcoming events ››
Job vacancies
Vacancies at SENSE Partners ››
Other vacancies in the SENSE field ››
SENSE headlines
Vegetables from Mars receives Klokhuis Science prize 2016
Making an Impact! How to increase the societal relevance of your PhD research, 8-9 February 2017
Grasping Sustainability course, 13-17 March 2017
International Symposium Nutrient pollution in water systems: Sustainable solutions for Europe, China and the world, 14 December 2016
Editorial
Improving your SENSE experience

As was extensively announced before, the SENSE PhD Council (SPC) has conducted an online survey in Summer 2016 to increase our understanding of PhD’s preferences and potential barriers regarding SPC and SENSE activities.

First of all, we particularly wish to express our sincere appreciation for this effort to the SENSE PhD Council members Dona Barirani, Claudia de Lima e Silva and Majelle Verbraak who prepared and organized this successful survey. Besides this, we are also very grateful to the 282 SENSE PhD candidates who responded to the SPC Survey 2016 and who shared their ideas and experiences in this format – thank you for helping to improve your SENSE experience!

The findings of the SPC Survey 2016 are now available for you at the new online portal of the SENSE PhD Council, which can be found HERE. This new SPC portal is ‘work in progress’ of course – so perhaps YOU would like to join the SENSE PhD Council as a new member (and maybe help SPC to further develop its online portal)?

It is a pleasure to note here that the SENSE General Board and the SENSE Board of Directors have already warmly welcomed the SPC Survey 2016 and are committed to harvest its insights for the further improvement of SENSE (this process will be continued into the next year too).

Already some good decisions have been made to further improve the SENSE experience and its added value for all involved. For example, both the SENSE Research Committee and the SENSE Education Committee will be further revitalized. And both will include a representation of SENSE PhD Council members – thus ensuring shorter lines of communication for the future and easier access to new ideas and possible improvements.

Besides this, the SENSE A2 project now has its own online tool in the SENSE portal too (as was already the case for the SENSE A1 course) – this new development will considerably contribute to online transparency and help to improve prompt feedbacks, especially since the number of submitted Training and Supervision Plans (TSP) has increased considerably in the past year.

Along these lines of increasing the added value of SENSE for all, we have also decided that the SENSE A1 course will start to pay more explicit attention to possible sources of work-related stress – and how to deal with them.

Future editions of the SENSE e-News will report further on this process of improving your SENSE experience together. As a final note in this editorial, I invite all who would like to be a participant in the next meeting of SENSE Research Cluster XIII: Land use, spatial analysis and modelling / ecosystem and landscape services – to ENROLL HERE for this SENSE Research Cluster asap, so you will be included in the upcoming special invitation.

Let’s make SENSE together!

Ad van Dommelen
SENSE Director of Education
SENSE News
Vegetables from Mars receives Klokhuis Science prize 2016

Mars soil researcher Wieger Wamelink (WU, and SENSE PhD) is the winner of the first Klokhuis Science prize. Klokhuis is an informative children's programme of the Dutch broadcasting company NTR. Wieger Wameling's research on the possibility to grow vegetables on Mars was considered the "coolest" research by the children's jury.
Read more (in Dutch) ››
Philip Ward (IVM-VU) in the Environmental Science Journal for Teens: How much do we really know about river flooding?
After publishing a paper on comparing 6 global flood models in ERL, Philip Ward (IVM-VU) and his co-authors were asked to developed a version for the Environmental Science Journal for Teens. This is a resource for teachers of teenage children. It was a really nice way to present their research in a different way, which may also be nice for some other SENSE research. 
  
Read the whole article ››
Joyeeta Gupta (UNESCO-IHE) announced co-chair of GEO-6
Joyeeta Gupta, Professor of Law and Policy in Water Resources and Environment at UNESCO-IHE was named Co-Chair, with Paul Ekins, Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at University College, London, to lead the production of the sixth edition of the 'Global Environment Outlook' (GEO-6), the most comprehensive assessment of the state of the world's environment.

The assessment, produced by UN Environment provides policy makers with trends and projections for air, climate, water, land and biodiversity and an outlook for the future. It demonstrates the interactions between social, economic and environmental drivers of environmental degradation and analyses different policy options for a more sustainable world in the near to longer term.
Read more ››
UNESCO-IHE emeritus prof. Bart Schultz wins world irrigation prize 2016 for unmatched contribution to the field of irrigation and drainage

The awarding body, the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, selected Professor Bart Schultz, a Dutch national, to receive the award for his, “sustained, long standing and highly committed work to irrigation and the drainage sector worldwide, through education, research, planning and international project implementation”. 
Read more ››
NVBM Award for Bert Holtslag
Bert Holtslag, full professor in Meteorology at WUR, has been awarded by the Nederlandse Vereniging ter Bevordering van de Metereologie (NVBM) for his impressing contribution to the development of meteorology, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Much of his work is applied in current weather and climate models. He is also first author of the standard work "Clear and Cloudy Boundary Layers".
Read more (in Dutch) ››
SENSE PhD blogs
Jetske Vaas and Elizabeth Haber (UU): Outreach in the Caribbean
Despite scientists’ strong commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, the public has shown changing trust in the scientific community since the mid 1970’s. This erosion of trust is often blamed on scientists’ difficulty with communicating their research to the public. It is up to scientists, then, to find effective ways to communicate their research without compromising the truth. This call to action is beautifully illustrated by a quote from a Scientific American blog post about communicating science: “We need to learn to engage without sensationalizing, enchant without deceiving, compel while staying true to the underlying science.” 
Read blogpost ››
Upcoming PhD Graduations
Overview of PhD graduations upcoming period
  • Jeroen Admiraal
    The tension between nature conservation and economic valuation of ecosystem services
    1 December 2016, Leiden University, Conservation Biology
     
  • Zhihui Wang
    Mapping Spatial Variation of Foliar Nitrogen Using Hyperspectral Remote Sensing
    1 December 2016, University of Twente, Department of Natural Resources
      
  • Marie Combe
    Modeling the coupled exchange of water and CO2 over croplands
    2 December 2016, Wageningen University, Meteorology and Air Quality 
     
  • Xiyu Ouyang
    Comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography and high throughput effect-directed analysis in environmental research
    6 December 2016, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Chemistry and Biology
     
  • Supriatin Supriatin
    Selenium Speciation and Bioavailability in Dutch Agricultural Soils: The Role of Soil Organic Matter
    6 December 2016, Wageningen University, Soil Chemistry and Chemical Soil Quality
     
  • Insya Arbainsyah
    The impact of Sustainable Forest Management on plant and bird diversity in East Kalimantan, Indonesia
    6 December 2016, Leiden University, Conservation Biology
     
  • Achmad Adhitya
    Biophysical feedbacks between seagrasses and hydrodynamics in relation to grazing, water quality and spatial heterogeneity: consequences for sediment stability and seston trapping
    7 December 2016, Leiden University, Conservation Biology
     
  • Maryna Strokal
    River export of nutrients to the coastal waters of China: The MARINA model to assess sources, effects and solutions
    13 December 2016, Wageningen University, Environmental Systems Analysis
     
  • Eric Eugene Massey
    Innovations in policy: The emergence of climate adaptation as a new policy field
    13 December 2016, VU University Amsterdam, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Environmental Policy Analysis
     
  • Samet Azman
    Anaerobic digestion of cellulose and hemicellulose in the presence of humic acids
    14 December 2016, Wageningen University, Microbiology
     
  • Mulatie Mekonnen Getahun
    Sustaining reservoir use through sediment trapping in NW Ethiopia
    14 December 2016, Wageningen University, Soil Physics and Land Management
     
  • Veronica Graciela Minaya Maldonado
    Exploring Processes and Interactions of the Andes Páramo Region
    20 December 2016, UNESCO-IHE, River Basin Development
     
  • Eveline van der Linden
    Arctic climate change and decadal variability
    21 December 2016, Wageningen University, Meteorology and Air Quality
     
More upcoming graduations ››
Upcoming Courses
Making an Impact! How to increase the societal relevance of your PhD research, 8-9 February 2017
With the pressing global challenges of climate change, food security and natural resource pollution and depletion, the need for societally relevant research is higher than ever. The societal relevance of sustainability research has become a crucial aspect in the evaluation of research proposals, while demonstrating the societal impact of research has become a core element in the assessment of research results. For these reasons, many PhD-candidates working on sustainability issues are motivated to ensure that their research has an impact.

In the course, you will learn about activities to increase the societal relevance of your research, and how these can be balanced with other commitments and priorities in your PhD-programme .
Read more and register ››
Grasping Sustainability, 13-17 March 2017
Explore, understand and utilise sustainability, the different concepts, objectives, indicators and methodologies.
To date, many different scientific concepts and approaches of environmental sustainability exist. What are the differences? What do they entail? How can you achieve sustainable development? How can you apply sustainability in your own research? Moreover, what is your role as a scientist and how can you deal with facts, insecurities, values and opinions?
This course will enable you to grasp sustainability and to apply concepts and approaches to your own research.
Read more and register ››
A1 SENSE Introductory Course, 29-31 March 2017
What is my work good for? Even the most nerdish PhD student asks himself or herself this question once in a while. Is it just for the sake of science or does it relate to other research or even to environmental policy? What are my SENSE colleagues working on in other departments and other universities? How does their research relate to mine?
 
 In the SENSE course 'Environmental Research in Context' several perspectives and approaches to analyse and to solve environmental problems are discussed. You will find out how your own research project fits within other (multi-) disciplinary approaches and you will discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of your approach compared to these alternatives.

In addition, you will evaluate some examples where questions from society were translated into scientific research projects in terms of relevance and scientific validity with experienced researchers and other PhD students.
Read more and register ››
Overview of PhD / postdoc courses December-February
Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses
More upcoming courses ››
Discussion Groups
R Users Discussion Group Meeting, 14 December
The R Users Meeting is a monthly meeting for people working with R. PhD and MSc students, as well as staff members, both beginners as well as advanced R users are welcome. The meeting offers an opportunity to help each other with specific questions and exchange ideas. In each meeting a specific topic is discussed by demonstrating and discussing examples of R functions and example data. The second part of each meeting is reserved for short questions on R codes and offers opportunity to get advice on your R code and how to fix or improve it.
Read more ››
Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminars (WEES), 15 December
WEES is an initiative from PhD students and postdocs at Wageningen University to organize a continuing series of stimulating seminars on contemporary topics in evolution and ecology. We aim to bring together different groups at Wageningen University using a variety of systems, but with a common interest in evolutionary and ecological questions. For this series we invite researchers from all over the world that have leading roles in their field. After the talk there will be drinks for an informal discussion and a dinner in town with the speaker.
  • 15 December: Robert A. Junker (Salzburg, Austria)
Read more ››
Upcoming Events
International Symposium Nutrient pollution in water systems: Sustainable solutions for Europe, China and the world, 14 December 2016
Maryna Strokal would like to invite you to attend an international symposium:

“Nutrient pollution in water systems: Sustainable solutions for Europe, China and the world”

Date: 14 December 2016
Time: 9.00 – 16.30
Location: Aula 2 of Wageningen university

The topics of the symposium are related to nutrients, water systems, sustainable solutions, different world regions.

If your research is related to one of these topics, then my questions to you are:
1. Would you be interested in presenting a poster at the symposium?
2. If yes, please send an email to maryna.strokal@wur.nl

Participation in this symposium will give you opportunities:
- to share/exchange you research with experts from different universities (see the attachment).
- to meet your PhD colleagues and to extend your network with other professionals in your field.  
Go to poster for programme details ››
Overview of upcoming events
Recently announced:
Full list of interesting upcoming events:
See SENSE website ››
Job vacancies
Vacancies at SENSE Partners
Other vacancies in the SENSE field
More vacancies
During the month new vacancies are regularly posted on the SENSE vacancy page and in the SENSE LinkedIn group.

This newsletter is published by the
SENSE Research School for Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment.

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