Eco-DĀS VIII Symposium

Venue

The Eco-DĀS symposium series will be held on 11-16 October, 2008, at the East-West Center immediately adjacent to the University of Hawai`i, Manoa campus. The East-West Center conference facility is physically designed to facilitate workshops and conferences in which communication and interaction are particularly important. It is conveniently located near the internationally recognized School of Earth and Ocean Science and Technology (SOEST). Two other symposium series, the Dissertations Symposium on Chemical Oceanography (DISCO) and the Physical Oceanography Dissertation Symposium (PODS), have employed this venue with great success. The facility can easily accommodate symposium participants as well as mentors and observers, and provides for breakout rooms for focus groups.

Mentoring

Mentoring is often missing from the early careers of aquatic science professionals. Few institutions have formal mentoring programs, and many early career professionals are largely on their own with regard to making sensible career choices. A key element of the proposed program will be to foster long-term mentoring relationships between the participants and volunteers representing the diversity of available career choices. Up to 5 mentors will be invited to attend, representing academic, research institution, and government settings. Their responsibilities will include responding to any questions from participants at the symposium event, and afterward.

Organization

From the start, participants will be challenged to reach across disciplinary lines. The mission of every participant is to come away from the symposium with new possibilities for research partnerships, and a new appreciation of the value of transdisciplinary research. This overarching goal will be emphasized throughout the symposium.

Formal presentations and discussion will occupy portions of the first three days of the symposium. In formal presentations of the dissertation work of each participant, methodological details will be deemphasized (unless they are the main subject of the research) in favor of a greater focus on its impact on the subdiscipline as well as its broader implications, and on its short- and long-term potential for interdisciplinary research. Each presentation will devote roughly equal time to the formal presentation, and to open discussion of the presenter's work and its relationship to the work of others.

The proposed chapter outlines submitted with applications will be posted to a symposium website with access restricted to participants. This will allow participants to identify potential connections to the work of other participants, and each participant will be asked to identify these possible collaborations prior to the symposium. Presentations will be scheduled in groups designed to highlight their self-identified potential for collaboration.

In addition to these presentations, participants will be addressed by agency representatives who will provide a frank assessment of the challenges and opportunities available through agency funding. Members of the mentor team will also address the symposium. For example, a representative of private industry would discuss such matters as industry investment, employment, development and commercial-scale reproduction of new technology. A representative of a professional society would introduce the opportunities and resources made available to early career scientists by a dozen or more societies that support ecological science in ocean and fresh waters.

The latter part of the symposium will transition into working groups. Broadly speaking, the goal will be to define the greatest and most challenging research issues ahead, and to make specific recommendations for new funding directions. These groups will also be asked to discuss and identify the programs and opportunities that have been the most valuable to their career development to date, and most importantly to identify programs and opportunities that were not available. Mentors will circulate among the working groups and act as information resources.

In addition, time will be set aside specifically to provide opportunities to establish and develop collaborations for the symposium volume chapters (see Symposium Proceedings).

Advisory White Papers

Agency representatives will be invited to pose specific questions to the symposium participants, targeting questions of particular interest to the funding agencies. Participants may also identify other high-priority topics. A set of white papers will result from the deliberations of working groups, providing recommendations for future research. Extensive outlines of each white paper will be due by the end of the symposium and will be completed by the working group members. The lead author will be selected by the working group and will take responsibility for completion of the white paper within three months after the symposium. These white papers will be disseminated via the Symposium website and provided to the funding agencies.

Wrapping Up

Closing sessions of the symposium will include: 1) reports back from the working groups; 2) reports back from co-authors on their proposed collaborative chapters, and the transdisciplinary basis of the collaboration, and 3) assignments for completion of white papers and proceedings.

Symposium timing

Applying for Eco-DĀS VIII is a commitment to meet certain deadlines!
The course of events for the Eco-DĀS VIII is:

April 30	Deadline for applications including proposed chapter outlines
June 08	Issue invitations to participants
July 08	Confirm participants
August 08	Participants identify potential collaborations
October 08	Eco-DĀS VIII held in Honolulu, HI
	Participants finalize collaborations for symposium volume
	Participants develop white papers addressing research needs
January 09	Final drafts of white papers due
February 09	Symposium report produced
	Final drafts of chapters due
March/April 09	Chapters in review
May/June 09	Chapters in revision
July 09	Publication of symposium proceedings