Improving our understanding of the Earth´s complex climate phenomena, such as El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), has a huge economic and social impact for present and future generations, and can underpin advances in areas as diverse as energy, environment, agricultural and marine sciences. Given the complexity of the inter-relations between the subsystems that constitute our climate, it is important to approach the problem from an interdisciplinary perspective. However, there is a great shortage of qualified workforce to perform this task and a major challenge is the education and training of young qualified researchers that can approach climate phenomena from a complex systems point of view. 

This requires knowledge from several fields such as physics, dynamical systems theory and computer science, and also requires a detailed understanding of Earth sciences such as meteorology and oceanography. There is also a clear need for improving the coordination and cooperation of the research teams working on these issues.

The LINC Network (Learning about Interacting Networks in Climate) is an Initial Training Network (ITN) within the Marie Curie actions, aimed to provide training for researchers in such topics. LINC is funded by the European Commission through its 7th Framework programme. Participating institutions include six academic partners (Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel; IMAU, Utrecht University, The Netherlands; Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay; IFISC (CSIC-University of the Balearic Islands), Mallorca, Spain) and three companies (Ambrosys, Potsdam, Germany; Climate Risk Analysis, Hannover, Germany; VORtech, Delft, The Netherlands).

Learn more about LINC from the LINC home page