The fourth SUPER-B meeting was held in Cluj, Romania. A very beautiful place. Two days of workshop and conference facilitated networking and collaboration.
Dr. Nielsen attended the second SUPER-B meeting in Rome November 4th and 5th.
The second round of Super-B meetings in Rome went very well. The venue, the historical FAI building at the Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, was great, and the food too, which raised the spirits and made the MC and WG meetings an excellent start of the Super-B community. Scientists from more than 31 countries attended, mostly from Europe, but including also Kenya, New Zealand and the USA.
The Cost Action SUPER-B is now rolling. The meeting in Rome sat the stage for future work and Dr. Nielsen is now involved in the WG coordinator team. It was exciting interacting with the highly diverse group of people involved in SUPER-B, a lot of old friends and some new ones. Different cultures, different approaches and indeed different research focus among the scientists involved made the meeting very stimulating. Dr. Nielsens contribution in this initial phase will be on data and studies on crop pollination, hidden in the "grey literature" and/or in local languages. We believe this to be an invaluable source of important information, though difficult to reach. The goal is to make a protocol for gathering relevant data, including "what is relevant", where to look, what to include, how to compile and solutions for data storage. As a means to achieve this Dr. Michael Garratt from the University of Reading has received funding through SUPER-B for a STSM to come to Norway to discuss approaches for data gathering and field work in June 2015.