The online kick-off-meeting of the PEEX-FRESReN (Pan-Eursian Experiment – Finnish-Russian Earth Sciences Research Network) project took place on 13 January 2022. Representatives from 3 Finnish (coordinator – University of Helsinki, UHEL; University of Eastern Finland, UEF; and Tampere University Technology, TAU) and 3 Russian (Russian State Hydrometeorological University, RSHU; Saint-Petersburg State University, SPBU; and Moscow State University, MSU) attended the meeting. The coordinator – Dr. Hanna K. Lappalainen – introduced all participants to aims, objectives, tasks and originally planned activities of the project.

It followed by discussions with outlining/ planning activities for year of 2022. Due to covid situation, at start the project activities will be arranged online with quarterly project webinars/seminars (3+ hour) and a series of weekly/ or bi-weekly short webinars (up to 1 h). The 1^st quarterly event is planned as online on 1 March 2022, where the PEEX programme will be introduced and all 6 Universities will deliver oral talks about their educational and research activities. A series of webinars will include presentations (science and education oriented) by participants of the project as well as a part of the involved Universities events, e.g. selected online webinars of the Atmosphere and Climate Competence Center (ACCC), research seminars of the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (Helsinki), Aerosol Physics seminars (Kuopio), seminars of the Geography Department of MSU (Moscow), others. It has been agreed that webinars will be open only for participants from the Partners’ Universities.

The onsite/ face-to-face intensive training course on “Multi-Scales and -Processes Observations, Modelling and Assessment for Environmental Application” is planned during 21-27 August 2022 in the city of St.Petersburg, Russia. The local host is the SPBU Partner and this event will take place on the premises of the SPBU University. At least, 3-4 students from the Finnish Universities and more students from the Russian Universities are expected to attend the training. Programme is under development by Partners and it will include lectures and practical exercises as small-scale research projects to be realised by groups of students.

At current moment, 56 students from RSHU, SPBU and MSU and 27 their scientific supervisors at their home Universities already showed interest to be involved in the PEEX-FRESReN activities from the Russian side. Possibilities of the Finnish Universities researchers’/ teachers’ involvement in a co-supervision of selected students from the Russian Universities will be discussed in due time.

Dissemination of information about planned and realised various events, educational and research outcomes of the project, short-term mobilities (due to covid, such activities are planned starting autumn 2022) between the Universities will be distributed and promoted through the Universities student networks as well as the PEEX community communication channels.

Text by: Hanna Lappalainen, Alexander Mahura (UHEL)