19 August 2026

The annual PCAPS Open Session will be held at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo, Norway this August. Join and help shape the future of polar environmental forecasting.

Date: Wednesday, 19 August 2026

Time: 13.00–16.30 CEST

Place: Henrik Mohns plass 1, Oslo, Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Oslo, Norway

About the PCAPS Open Session 2026

The PCAPS Services & Actionability Task Team and the Sustainability & Impact Task Team are, in collaboration with the PCAPS ICO, currently preparing an Open Session to be held on Wednesday 19 August at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo. The PCAPS Open Sessions are a key opportunity for networking, collaboration and dialogue, and have become an established part of the annual PCAPS Steering Group meetings.

PCAPS Open Session 2026 theme: what are the social roles of environmental data in dynamic polar regions?

We invite Arctic and Antarctic stakeholders from public and private sectors, community representatives and polar researchers, to share their perspectives on challenges, bottlenecks, and opportunities in providing and using environmental services in polar regions, with a specific focus on data sharing and open data principles.

In this Open Session, we aim to explore how to collaborate effectively in increasingly dynamic polar regions, to ensure that environmental data are available to those who need them, when they need them.

Focusing on the full value cycle - from observations and modelling to information use - the PCAPS Open Session 2026 facilitates a dialogue on how to build and sustain trustworthy data-sharing collaborations across disciplines, sectors and borders. 

Agenda

12:30 - Registration, coffee & tea

13:00 - Welcome and introduction (Jelmer Jeuring)

• Overview of the PCAPS project (Daniela Liggett)

• Thematic Scope of the Open Session (Hanne Nielsen)

13:25 - Keynote presentations & expert panel discussion

• Karin Strand (Vice President Expedition Development, HX Expeditions): Safety in numbers: How crowdsourcing in the commercial fleet can enhance ship traffic patterns

• Jan René Larsen (Deputy Executive Secretary, Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme: AMAP): The Arctic ROADS process: Defining sustained and impactful observing in an Arctic context

• Andreas Brachel (Global Claims Lead - Sustainability and CEP Claims, Gard AS): Handling emergencies in polar regions: A maritime insurer's perspective

14:15 - End of digital streaming / Coffee & tea break

14:30 - Breakout session 1: What is data?

15:05 - Breakout session 2: Mapping social roles of data across the value cycle

15:45 - Coffee & tea break

16:00 - Pitches and plenary discussion of breakout insights

16:20 - Final thoughts (Daniela Liggett & Jørn Kristiansen, PCAPS co-chairs)

16:30 - End