First Meeting AIR Centre | Caribbean

The Cartagena Convention and Goals for Sustainable Development

On October 8th, 2021, 4-6 PM UTC, we introduced the AIR Centre | Caribbean and respective opportunities for an Atlantic basin collaboration. Caribbean countries and overseas territories have a long history of interactions and many common challenges and shared goals. Nonetheless, barriers for scientific and technological cooperation persist, which sometimes hampers the development of collaborative solutions to address climate change, biodiversity loss, destruction of habitats, natural hazards, marine pollution, unequal economic growth and its impacts on rural and urban livelihoods. Preserving and restoring Caribbean marine and coastal resources and fostering effective partnerships for small islands developing states will require stronger international cooperation not only within the region, but with other countries around the Atlantic Ocean as well.

The AIR Centre | Caribbean will be all about advancing science and technology in a transformative scale in the region. It will build on and will expand the abilities of individual organizations, and it will advance selected scientific and technological domains and their constellations of actors towards shared targets. For that, it must recruit and orchestrate a comprehensive web of organizations and individuals to deliver change and social impact through concrete actions.

The AIR Centre | Caribbean will then certainly lower or remove some of the barriers that separate relevant stakeholders from governments, academia, industry and civil society and create the necessary conditions for the development of impactful joint actions. For that, it is expected that the associates will contribute to:

  1. Identify areas of mutual scientific interests that address both national / regional priorities and global challenges, bringing together competences to co-create innovative research projects and explore new funding opportunities focused on societal impact.
  2. Actively engage other relevant institutions, such as universities, research institutes, businesses, funding agencies, development banks and non-governmental organizations to participate in mutually significant projects.
  3. Explore potential synergies between existing or planned national / regional projects, programmes and initiatives in the Caribbean Sea and in the Atlantic rim.
  4. Map research infrastructures and scientific institutions to promote shared access and open data to all relevant stakeholders.
  5. Identify potential knowledge gaps and stimulate programs on capacity building, mobility of researchers and technology transfer.
  6. Organize workshops and other dissemination and strategic stakeholder engagement activities, as well as encourage mutual institutional representation in selected events.
  7. Actively contribute for the development of the vision and mission of the AIR Centre.

The AIR Centre | Caribbean will create a permanent dialogue structure to align national / regional priorities and global challenges such as the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Cartagena Convention, the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance.

Programme

4 PM UTC: Welcome

  • Jorge Moreno, Vice Chancellor, UNICOSTA
  • Miguel Belló, CEO, AIR Centre

4:10 PM UTC: Presentations on the opportunities for collaboration per country

5:30 PM UTC:

  • Jose Luiz Moutinho, Chief Business & Networking, AIR Centre

5:35 PM UTC: Q&A

5:55 PM UTC: Conclusions / Way forward

6:00 PM UTC: Closing

Speakers

Jorge Moreno

We will learn about the Universidad de la Costa (UNICOSTA), which is a private, non-profit, national Higher Education institution. Leader in technological development and innovation where for 5 decades more than 40,000 integral citizens have been trained. It has a physical and technological infrastructure and alliances at a national and international level, which has allowed the teaching, research, extension, and internationalisation processes to be developed with excellence. In addition, it is accredited in high quality, committed to ensuring learning through its undergraduate and graduate programs. UNICOSTA is ranked among the 100 best universities in Latin America according to the Times Higher Education ranking and in response to current world challenges towards a future in which sustainable development is fostered, the Civil and Environmental Department have worked to contribute to the success of global strategies such as the global compact , COP21, SGD’s, among others.

Jorge Moreno-Gómez (PhD) is Professor in the Business Studies Department and Vice-chancellor at the Universidad de la Costa (Barranquilla, Colombia). He completed my PhD. in Entrepreneurship and Management at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) in 2015. His research work is mostly devoted on family business, corporate governance and competitiveness, with special emphasis on the role of women in top management positions. Additionally, Jorge is interested in the problems and possibilities of entrepreneurial activities and business creation, and their economic benefits from a territorial perspective. His research has been published in a variety of journals, including among others, Gender in Management, International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, International Journal of Emerging Markets, BRQ Business Research Quarterly and Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal.

More information:

Ana Lucía Duarte

UNICOSTA and its opportunities for research alliance for co-creation and knowledge exchange

Young researcher and teacher at the University of the Coast. Environmental Engineer and Master in Sustainable Development. Her research projects have been related to the evaluation of air quality in coastal metropolitan region..

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Christian Domínguez Sarmiento

Are the socio-economic impacts associated with Tropical Cyclones in Mexico exacerbated by local vulnerability and ENSO conditions?

Dr. Christian has a degree in atmospheric sciences from the Universidad Veracruzana. She has obtained his master’s and doctorate in Earth sciences from UNAM. She is a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change since 2019. Her lines of research are tropical meteorology and hydrometeorological risks..

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Luis Manuel Mejía Ortiz

Monitoring the Sargassum arrival in the Cozumel east coast during 2021

Dr. Mejía studied a degree in Biology from the UAM Xochimilco, a master’s degree in Management of Aquatic Natural Resources from UNAM, and a Doctorate in Marine Biology from the University of Liverpool (England). He has been a university professor in national and foreign institutions (University of Liverpool, England; University of Tor Vergata, Italy; University of Oldenburg, Germany; Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa; University of San Carlos de Guatemala; University of California, Berkeley, Brigham Young University, Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Harvard University and George Washington University, USA and the University of Belize. He has published more than 70 articles, book chapters; therefore, four books with impact at the local, national and international level related to crustaceans, their biology, ecology, taxonomy, and management, as well as sustainable development and integrated coastal management.

Maria Guadalupe Galindo Mendoza

Geospatial Impact of Invasive Species on Mexican Agriculture: The Next Threat to Food Security

Invasive species associated with pests and diseases constitute the second threat to global biodiversity, only after habitat loss and fragmentation. It has been shown that they are responsible for the extinction of 39% of the species that have disappeared on the globe since 1600 to date (MacArthur, 1972; Mcaneely, 2001; Granado; 2007). Currently, there are more than 3,000 species of plants and animals that are involuntarily transported daily around the world (Lardy, 2002; Simberloff, 2004; Wilkinson, 2007; Rogers, 2008; Ferrier, 2009). This means a huge financial cost for the State, because these pests have the capacity to reduce food production between 20% and 100%.

Dr. Maria Guadalupe Galindo Mendoza is the Coordinator of the National Laboratory of Phytosanitary Information Geoprocessing (LaNGIF) at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí. She has a BSc., a MSc. and PhD  in Geography from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Personal research interests include Environmental History, Geopolitics, Disasters and Environmental Impact and Phytosanitary Epidemiological Surveillance.

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Rodrigo da Silva

The Amazon forest as a tool for the development of research and partnerships with UFOPA

Dr. Rodrigo da Silva holds a Full Degree in Physics from the Federal University of Santa Maria – UFSM (1997), Masters (2000) and Doctorate (2006) in Physics also from UFSM. Her PhD was carried out in cooperation with the State University of New York (SUNY) within the LBA Program. In 2005 she moved to the Amazon to carry out the technical-scientific coordination of the LBA Program’s experimental sites and coordinate the LBA Training and Education Sector in Santarém. In 2006 he became Adjunct Professor at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) in Santarém, PA. In 2011 he was elected an Affiliate Member of the Brazilian Academy of Science for the period 2011-2015. He develops research in partnership with national groups from: UFSM, UFPA, MPEG, INPA, INPE, UEA, USP / CENA / ESALQ, UNICAMP and EMBRAPA; and with foreign groups from: State University of New York (S.U.N.Y.); University of Arizona (UA); Harvard University, University of Washington and University of Cambridge. His experience is in Geosciences and Physics, with an emphasis on Micrometeorology, working mainly on the following topics: – Climate Physics in the Amazon and its relationship with changes in land use and global climate change. His studies are concentrated in the confluence region of the Tapajós, Arapiuns and Amazon Rivers and in the region influenced by the BR-163 (FLONA do Tapajós).

If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.

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