Every nine months the OPERAs team meet for the general consortium meeting with  representatives from all 27 partner organisations. In late October the fifth general consortium took place over three days in the quaint and historic town of Aix-en-provence, located in the south of France. The general consortium provided a key opportunity for OPERAs colleagues to share updates to the many tasks and challenges undertaken within the project as well as reflect and discuss many other aspects of the project.

The first day was a huge success  with a warm welcome from our host  and colleague Wolfgang Cramer followed by an introduction from Mark Rounsevell. There were then exciting updates on the highlights from Work packages 2, 3 and 4  which are all available to watch here.

The second day began with a morning of overviews of OPPLA with an opening presentation from Claire brown followed by discussions until lunch. We then spent the afternoon on a field trip to the dramatic and spectacular Calanques national park an hours drive from the conference followed by a delightful dinner in the Cassis harbour.

The third and final day was focused on cross work package discussion and there were many breakout groups that took place with brief summaries of each session written up  (available here). Please note that the notes taken throughout the event will be used to inform a 36 month review pack to our Advisory board (Albert Norstrum and Elena Bennet) and for their feedback on the project as a whole.

A big thank you to everyone that contributed to the event and a special thanks to Wolfgang Cramer for being such a fantastic host!