The Nansen Tutu TRIATLAS Summer School on Ocean, Climate and Marine Ecosystem was held at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, during 14-21 January, 2020. We brought together 28 Master and PhD students and early career researchers from physical and biological oceanography, and from climate research, and geographically from Brazil, Africa, and Europe. In a somewhat unconventional manner, we ran the summer school partly as a workshop to initiate participants into the exciting field of interdisciplinary research. A new generation of interdisciplinary researchers is needed to solve the major challenges facing the Atlantic ecosystem and that are being addressed by the EU H2020 TRIATLAS project. It was a resounding success, with the participating students and early career researchers asking for new opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange.
The six intense days of lectures, interdisciplinary group work were broken with a weekend with visits to scenic nearby sites including to Cape Point – the most south western point Africa, particularly fitting as it is the start of one of the Benguela region that is a main focus area of the TRIATLAS project. This provided participants an excellent opportunity to get to know each other better and to form lasting collaborations that for many will be important to perform their work in TRIATLAS.
The summer school was sponsored by European Union’s Horizon 2020 TRIATLAS project (www.triatlas.eu) grant agreement no. 817578, Nansen-Tutu Centre, the German funded BANINO project, and CHESS research school.
Text: Noel Keenlyside
Photo: Daneeja Mauwreen