Comments on the report of the mid-term evaluation of the

Greenland Climate Research Centre (GCRC)

The mid-term evaluation report includes several good recommendations, which theleadership acknowledge, appreciate and will take action on. The centre‟s leadership andprincipal investigators (PI´s) have discussed the report in detail and consider that severalimportant aspects of it warrant a response and should not be left to stand alone. Thisdocument represents a joint comment from the GCRC leadership and all PI‟s of thecentre‟s individual projects.Some criticism by the evaluation panel appears to have arisen due to the fact that itcarried out all its work externally, i.e. outside Greenland. Furthermore, constraintsimposed by the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland (KVUG) on thestructure and strategy for GCRC have apparently not been clarified with the evaluationpanel for the purposes of its work. It is unfortunate and a matter of regret that the panelmissed the opportunity to visit Nuuk and to experience GCRC first hand, to gain insightinto the range of activities it carries out and supports, to meet key personnel, and tounderstand how GCRC is integrated within, and connects to, scientific and academicinstitutions in Nuuk and with the wider Greenlandic society. The absence of such an on-site visit reduces, in our view, the comprehensiveness of the evaluation processconcerning a number of its key conclusions. Furthermore, the panel was invited butmissed the opportunity to participate in GCRC‟s annual meeting where it would havebeen possible to meet all scientists and staff and gain a far richer understanding and morecomprehensive overview of the centre‟s organization and the studies being conducted.We have the following eleven comments on the evaluation report and the panel‟s ninerecommendations:1) The absence of a visit to the research facility itself in Nuuk is disappointing and haslikely had major disadvantages and significant bearing on the conduct of the evaluationprocess. We recommend that the absence of a visit to the Greenland Institute of NaturalResources (GINR) and GCRC to see the facilities in Nuuk, meet the staff and gain a first-hand understanding of the unique environment of which GCRC is an integral part ismentioned clearly in the introduction to the evaluation report.2) Valuable information on how GCRC actually performs locally in Greenland couldhave been acquired if the panel had conducted interviews with representatives of otherGreenlandic stakeholders / institutions / partners, such as the Self-Rule Government,Asiaq, Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), Ilisimatusarfik/University of Greenland, localauthorities, etc. As an example, the mayor of Nuuk and several Greenland governmentMinisters and officials have been crediting the initiatives and work carried out by GCRCand the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR). As a result, the evaluationreport only weakly reflects how influential the center has been in a Greenland context.3) As recommended in the evaluation report, it is important to identify a future full-timeleader of the center to be based in Nuuk and advertisement for qualified candidates will

be announced when the centers form and financial situation after the first term is known.The energy and enthusiasm of Professor Søren Rysgaard is not easy to match and it isimportant to draw on his experience in a future center. Søren Rysgaard worked in Nuukas a full-time leader from the date of the centre‟s establishment until autumn 2011 when,for personal reasons, he moved with his family to Denmark. This move was accepted andapproved by the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland (KVUG) and it wasagreed that Søren Rysgaard should share the leadership with Professor Torben RøjleChristensen. The deputy head of GCRC, Peter Schmidt Mikkelsen, has been presentcontinuously. In addition, Professor Mark Nuttall began his research and teachingactivities under GCRC‟s „Climate and Society‟ programme in February 2012, togetherwith scientist and head of communications at GCRC, Lene Kielsen Holm. They havejoined the team of leaders and have, since last year, ensured a stronger connectionbetween GCRC, Ilisimatusarfik and the wider Greenland community. With a future full-time leader present in Nuuk, the mentoring of young local students and scientists can bedone on a day to day basis and with this GCRC will achieve the necessary local structure.4) GCRC has been driven by coherent visions developed in the first year of its operationsduring a three-day meeting held at Søminestationen, Denmark, which included all PI‟sand internal staff. Additionally, several meetings have been held in Greenland with thelocal GCRC team to update visions and strategies. We will strive to make these visionsmore visible on the GCRC home pages.5) As stated by the panel, GCRC should be recognized for its research and activities andwe find this has been achieved to a very high degree. That GCRC is affiliated with GINRwas an initial condition stipulated by KVUG. In addition, all hiring and administrativesupport should be conducted through GINR. We find that it has proven to be a veryfruitful constellation that has led to a tremendous development in infrastructure, capacitybuilding and actual science in Greenland. A major part of this development has beenaccomplished through additional external funding obtained through joint applications andcollaborative activities. During its short lifetime, GCRC has more than tripled the initialfunding. Søren Rysgaard has been instrumental in this development. Greenland‟spopulation of some 57,000 is too small to support several research centers and we findthat the best way to obtain local capacity building and synergy between different sciencedisciplines is to combine local knowledge and administration. We recommend thatGCRC continues along this more collaborative path, thus contradicting the panel‟srecommendation 3 that the GCRC should aim to become an independent centrerecognized for its research in Arctic climate by 2020.6) We find that GCRC‟s PhD programme has been successful. PhD students workingwithin the Climate and Society programme are registered as full-time students atIlisimatusarfik. Consequently, all student research, supervision, mentoring and teachingfollow the “Guidelines for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at Ilisimatusarfik”.The PhD students within the Climate and Society programme are members of academicdepartments at Ilisimatusarfik and participate in the activities of those departments. Theyhave a supervisor and supervisory team overseeing their research programmes, theyparticipate in departmental meetings, they receive excellent training in research methods,

and they are expected to teach undergraduate courses. PhD workshops and PhD summerschools have also been organized. We are proud to have been able to achieve these highacademic standards in Greenland and to bridge GCRC and Ilisimatusarfik, which is asuccessful model for graduate education and capacity building. GCRC has managed tosolve financial issues and thus enabled PhD students to continue their studies in severalcases. PhD students have also been registered at collaborating universities. Whilepresence in Greenland is crucial, we find that these students, through collaboration withGCRC, have contributed to the capacity building of the center.7) The self-evaluation of the “Climate and Society” programme outlines plans formultidisciplinary projects. This was emphasised by Mark Nuttall during his interview.Significant progress in developing multidisciplinary work has taken place. The commentsby the panel seem redundant given what is outlined in the “Climate and Society”programme self-evaluation. It is also important to notice, that the commencement of thesocial science part of GCRC was delayed due to difficulties in recruiting scientificleadership in social science in Greenland. Hence the Climate and Society programme hadonly just started before the onset of the evaluation process.8) The evaluation report states that “communication between GCRC leadership and theprogram PI‟s and other researchers has been limited, and is hampered by a lack of formalstructure and a decision making process that is not transparent”. Further it is stated: “Thisis partially the result of an overall absence of a culture of scientific sharing of information,which appears to stem from the lack of leadership”. The GCRC embraces 25 projectsincluding 120 researchers spread over 25 institutions placed very far apart. It has been achallenge to obtain good communication. An important tool has been the annual meetingsincluding all PI‟s and as many team members as possible. In addition, the leadership hasorganized several smaller meetings to ensure communication and data sharing betweendifferent science disciplines and groups. There has been an overwhelming positiveresponse from participants that our annual meetings, besides being well organized, aregreat opportunities to cross-fertilize the different projects and science disciplines. In fact,several new projects have been established between projects with funding from bothnational and international sources. Thus, we find the criticism from the evaluation boardrather harsh, but will continue to strive towards improving and encouragingcommunication and collaboration in the future.9) With respect to the panel‟s recommendation 2 on the need of a clear vision of theprogramme: “The GCRC should focus on core climate change research in Greenland,such as the fate of the ice sheet and surrounding ocean circulation, sea-ice andatmosphere, which all play a critical role in determining much wider climate changeimpactsandtake advantage of Greenland‟s unique physical systems and ecosystems toaddress under-studied but important components of this coupled system”. This was theinitial vision for the centre presented to KVUG by Søren Rysgaard. KVUG decided thatthe center should consist of individual projects that apply independently for funding andthat the strongest projects – without evaluating the context, coherence or coupling –should be integrated in the center. This obviously posed challenges when defining a clearcommon research aim. However, in retrospect, GCRC has provided tremendous

opportunities for collaboration between scientists across universities and disciplines. Thismultiplicityof projects is one of the strengths of GCRC that differentiate it from morefocused science topic initiatives. If GCRC should lose this colorful composition it maylose some of its unique character, and as such we are thankful for the initial decision toform the GCRC.10) It seems vital that the evaluation panel is better informed on the background forsetting up the center. The structural setup of the center was to a high degree defined byKVUG and has been complicated probably because it is an unusual and unique initiativefrom the Ministry. The division of the funding in three rounds of applications andevaluations results in a quite fragile situation especially in relation to field measurementsneeding to be long-term enough to create results and PhD students dependent on fundingin all three periods. Another issue of which the panel seems unaware, causing muchfrustration to PI‟s and projects, is the late decision of a 44% overhead charge. Thissubstantially reduced the funding and complicated project finances where initial budgetsand plans were based on a 20% overhead. In addition, each project proposal hadanticipated a time span of 3-5 years, but due to the rules applied to us by the Ministry ofScience, Innovation and Higher Education funding for more that 1-2 years at a time couldnot be provided. This meant that several planned PhD positions were at risk and that eachPI had to ensure a guarantee from their individual institutions of payment of expensesshould the PI proposal not be funded in the next round of applications. The Centreleadership had no capacity to guarantee continued funding. Despite this fact we solvedfinancial challenges to PhD funding along the way. This was only possible because of avery fruitful collaboration between the GCRC leadership, PI‟s and their institutions.12) We find that the scientific results already emerging from GCRC are impressive andwould have liked to see greater recognition of this by the evaluation panel. The reportunfortunately seems to focus on administrative aspects of the center rather than judgingwhat has actually been accomplished. At the time of this mid-term evaluation, GCRCscientists had published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers in international journals,including highly recognized journals. This is very impressive considering that several ofthese articles were prepared locally in Greenland, and demonstrates that it is possible tobuild a major modern research environment in Greenland. In addition, numerous articlesin newspapers and journals have been published, and information on a wealth of nationaland international activities has been broadcasted. The centre has participated in numerousconferences, has itself organized several large international conferences, and has raisedsignificant funding for new local research projects and large international science andeducation networks, such as the Arctic Science Partnership (www.asp-net.org). Inaddition, GCRC has collaborated with GINR to raise the necessary means for newbuildings, ships and vessels, field stations, multiple field and laboratory equipment andinstrumentation, a boathouse etc. Finally, GCRC has been instrumental in giving adviceon climate-related issues to local authorities and the Self-Rule Government.

This response has been prepared and agreed upon by the leadership and all principalinvestigators in GCRC:Søren Rysgaard, Professor, Center leader (GCRC)Peter Schmidt Mikkelsen, Deputy head (GCRC)Torben Røjle Christensen, Professor, Co-lead (GCRC)Mark Nuttall, Professor, Co-lead (GCRC, University of Greenland)Lene Kielsen Holm, Head of communications (GCRC, University of Greenland)Klaus Nygaard, Director (Greenland Institute of Natural Resources)Andre Visser, Professor (Danish Technical University)Erik Jeppesen, Professor (Aarhus University)Jesper Raakjær, Professor (Aalborg University)Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, Center leader CRES (Danish Meteorology Institute)Einar Eg Nielsen, Professor (Danish Technical University)Torkel Gissel Nielsen, Professor (Danish Technical University)Ronnie Nøhr Glud, Professor (University of Southern Denmark)Leif Toudal, Senior Scientist (Danish Meteorology Institute)Dorthe Dahl Jensen, Professor (Copenhagen University)Colin Stedmon, Associate Professor (Danish Technical University)Malene Simon, Senior scientist (GCRC)Martin Emil Blicher, Senior scientist (GCRC)Kristine Arendt, Scientist (GCRC)John Mortensen, Scientist (GCRC)Kunuk Lennert, Program coordinator (GCRC)Martin Truffer, Professor (University of Fairbanks)