Full-Circle Climate Communication Workshop

There is a circular form on the far-right of the image with a spectrum of color from yellow to violet. The spectrum makes the circle appear spherical

This coming January, scientists, humanists, culture producers, and policy experts from around the USA will join together to imagine and design new ways of communicating to accelerate and broaden our human response to climate change. It is a response to the fact that current efforts to curb global warming lack the necessary scope and urgency, and that remaining impediments are not only scientific but increasingly social, cultural, political, and economic. We are seeking interested participants with knowledge, skills, and abilities as list below.

Workshop Dates: Jan 13-17, 2025 (minimum 3-day commitment required for participants)

Location: University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

Sponsors: The Institute for Harnessing Data and Model Revolution in the Polar Regions (iHARP) and the Imaging Research Center (IRC) at UMBC. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Cost: There is no cost for the workshop for USA-based participants.

Travel and lodging expenses: Available funding can cover travel and lodging for approximately 25 USA-based participants, excluding iHARP and UMBC scholars and researchers. The planning committee will select participants for reimbursement based on the distance they must travel, and the need to balance disciplinary representation for the workshop.

Workshop Goals

The diverse knowledge and expertise present in the workshop will enable participants to learn about and utilize current climate research to develop innovative and viable communication strategies. These will be published online and be made public. The work will be based on climate science and informed by knowledge of its likely impact on human beings and ecosystems. It will be aimed at behavior change and policy objectives and include a theory of change that accounts for knowledge of human behavior and cultural dynamics, narrative and rhetoric. All of this will be designed to take form form through visualization, the media arts, creative inquiry, and arts expertise.

  • Produce viable and actionable communication strategies to increase the influence of climate change research on policymaking and people’s individual choices.
  • Model, in a scalable way, the broadly transdisciplinary, impact-oriented work universities can do to optimize the impact of their research.
  • Experience the transformative practice of integrating your knowledge and expertise with that of others whose work is very different from your own but equally essential for meeting challenges and seizing opportunities of our time.

Participant Eligibility

We seeking researchers and scholars in the following and related areas who are interested in integrating their knowledge and expertise with that of colleagues in different fields, and who are passionate about curbing climate change:

  • Climate Sciences
  • Geography
  • Computer Science
  • Data Science
  • Machine Learning and AI
  • Information Systems
  • Human-Centered Computing
  • Media Arts
  • Data Visualization
  • Story, Narrative, Rhetoric
  • Behavioral Science
  • Social-Community Psychology
  • Anthropology
  • Political Science
  • Public Policy
  • Public Health

To register, complete THIS FORM  by the current due date of 11/20/24.

If you have any questions please email info@irc.umbc.edu and put “FULL-CIRCLE” as the subject.