ICOS Scientific Conference 2018. ICOS organized its 3rd ICOS Science Conference at Prague, Czech Republic in September 208. The theme of this conference was greenhouse gases and biogeochemical cycles. Conference was structured around 13 sessions covering topics from local to global carbon balances and greenhouse gas budgets and from in-situ and remote sensing observations to societal impact. More than 300 participants from 30 different countries including several internationally renowned scientists were gathered together for the three-day meeting followed by one-day excursions. The goal of the conference was to induce new data users, new members for the RI community, to get media visibility, enhance collaboration/cooperation with private sector (instrument providers), and have an impact on decision makers. Planning of the conference was began two years ahead and practical organization in one year ahead. Organization required extensive resources, for example, one full year of the practical coordinator’s work time, six months of science coordinator’s and two months of communication officers work plus local organizers working hours. Organizers need to have a good contact to the scientific communities to invite key-note speakers, session chairs and attendees. In addition, experience on the practical organizing and contacts to private sector (industry attendee and sponsors). #ICOScapes gave the visual identity to the conference and the photography exhibition was simultaneously at the local parliament house. This visibility can have a positive impact on the funding opportunities of the local member of the RI. 

 - Janne-Markus Rintala and Jouni Heiskanen, ICOS

 COOP+ organized events: COOP+ community organized and tested a national pilot event “Drones in research and research infrastructures” in Helsinki. The purpose was to bring together researchers, environmental RIs and SMEs. The event lasted for half-day, where first part consisted of invited oral presentations by SME representatives and researchers and the second part was a wine and snack event where people were to have a casually discuss with each other and find new collaborations while checking out posters. The initial advertisement of the event collected positive feedback both from researchers and SMEs, whereas surprisingly the interest from RIs was smaller. All invited participants attended the event and totally there were 75 participants. Organizing such an event was fairly inexpensive and didn’t require much of planning and working hours (approximately one week of work for sending invitations, making flyers and practical organization of the event). In general, the main expenses are service and venue rents. The first was estimated to be 20 e/person, whereas the location rent naturally depends on the city and needed space, in our case it was free of charge.  It is hard to state the utility of the event as it is hard to measure people’s networking and connection to future collaboration projects. We believe that the event gave a positive impression to the participants and we would definitely reorganize similar event again. 

- Leena Järvi and Ari Asmi, UHEL