Field conference

Into the field

A novel network building activity will be organised in the form of a ‘planetary field conference’, which will bring together modellers, experimentalists, and field scientists in a field setting with analogues of planetary processes and materials. Field conferences have been successful in the past for capacity building and community building. We believe this approach is also well-suited for furthering our community in the Netherlands. In addition, field analogue approaches are widely used in various stages of instrument and mission development for planetary missions. With this introduction to functional planetary analogues, we can equip our community with a methodology to prepare for future instruments and missions. This is also highly complementary and synergistic with the proposed in silico and laboratory approaches in the three core projects of the expertise network.

Planning

The field conference is scheduled to take place during summer 2028 (year 4) to make optimal use of the developments in the network and to help future-proof the initiatives emerging from the network. It will combine plenary talks with field visits to link theory and practise, during which participants deliver an active contribution to the (field) programme. To generate the largest impact, we will facilitate the participation of stakeholders from various scientific fields in the network. The field conference will take place in Iceland – a key planetary analogue for all processes covered in the network. The conference will be organised and led by dr. Sebastiaan de Vet (TU Delft).