First Human Planet Forum organised in Enschede

12-15 September 2017

Almost 100 hundred participants from 18 different countries from all continents of the globe attended the first meeting of the Human Planet Initiative, kindly hosted by the Faculty of Geo-Information and Earth Observation of the University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. The participants included the main producers of global fine scale settlement and population data (JRC and DLR for built-up data; JRC, WorldPop and CIESIN for population data), scientists working with the data as well as policy makers (UN-HABITAT, DG REGIO, US Department of State) and other stakeholders (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

The meeting was opened with a joint video address of Charlina Vitcheva, Deputy Director General of the Joint Research Centre and Dr. Joan Clos, Executive Director of the United Nation’s Settlement Program (UN-HABITAT), who were meeting concurrently in Ispra. During the three days the experts presented their latest research and discussed how to address new research questions together to further improve the quality of the global settlement and population data.

Before the start of the Human Planet Forum, the JRC organized two training events on tools developed by the JRC. The trainings were fully booked and triggered a number of requests for additional capacity building and training sessions in partner institutions.

The workshop concluded with the confirmation a number of expert groups that are addressing together a specific angle of work in the next two years and the members of the steering committee. The Human Planet Forum will be organized biannually. However, the next big event will be the presence at the World Urban Forum in February 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, (Malaysia), were a number of members of the Human Planet Initiative will meet to present their work.