iBOL Scientific Steering Committee

SECOND MEETING

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

September 23-25, 2010

The second SSC meeting, following on from the 2009 assembly in Mexico City, was designed as a two-way consultation between iBOL governance and management, representatives from the project’s Central, Regional and National Nodes, leaders of its 20 Working Groups, and members of the GE³LS research team.  After a brief overview of the scientific progress and management structure of the iBOL project, most of the meeting was devoted to small group discussions designed to help delegates clarify the goals, challenges and strategies for their working groups and nodes. All discussion groups were provided with a chairperson/facilitator and a rapporteur to capture salient points. Summary presentations from each of the discussion groups are included in Appendix 1, and results of the participant survey are presented in Appendix 2.

In addition to SSC delegates, the meeting was attended by members of iBOL’s Board of Directors, Scientific Advisory Board, and Technology Development Advisory Group, and the chairs of the latter groups presented verbal reports to the Board of Directors at its meeting on September 26, 2010.  Minutes of this meeting, including the SAB and TDAG reports, will be issued in due course.

At the end of the meeting the Scientific Steering Committee agreed to the formation of a sub-committee of its members to act on its behalf in identifying and acting on priorities that arise between meetings of the full SSC.  iBOL management will propose the terms of reference and process to establish this sub-committee in due course.

iBOL management committed to reporting back to the SSC by mid-November 2010, and to integrating the findings and understandings from the discussions into iBOL’s  ongoing strategic plan.

Summary of key discussion topics

Download the Official Program (PDF)