2nd Annual BALLERINA Meeting, Rovaniemi, Finland, 8-12. June 1998

Dear BALLERINA Friends,

The Second BALLERINA Annual Meeting 1998 will be co-located with the Resource Technology'98 (RT98) Meeting in Rovaniemi, Finland, 8-12. June. You will find more information about RT98 at http://www.metla.fi/event/rt98/cfp.htm

Some of you are already aware of this, while even more are unaware. A key reason for this very late announcement is the delayed decision by the WorldBank's InfoDev Programme to provide a major travel grant to facilitate participation from BALLERINA Partners in CEE and NIS countries in the Baltic Sea Region. Another is the Sydney-virus... Thus, we have now reached a...

A STATE OF URGENCY....

Luckily, the Organisers of RT98 has accepted to extend the deadline for submission of abstracts for BALLERINA Partners until Feb 28. 1998.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted to:

RT98, P.O.Box 16, FIN-96301 ROVANIEMI, Finland, by fax: +358-16-3364640 or by e-mail to: rt98sec@roi.metla.fi (ASCII, RTF or HTML format preferred).

During the one-day BALLERINA Session at RT98, we hope to have a nice blend of presentations from partners all around the Baltic Sea highlighting recent or forthcoming Internet resources focusing upon the Baltic Sea region environment and sustainable development. Also fruitful discussions are planned for..

TRAVEL SUPPORT

Due to the extraordinary costs with Rovaniemi as venue, the InfoDev Programme of the WorldBank has agreed to provide a travel grant for around 25 BALLERINA partners from CEE and NIS countries in the Baltic Sea Region. The grant will cover APEX fare flight ticket, hotel, and participation fee.

First priority will be given to Members of the BALLERINA Advisory Board coming from these countries. Advisory Board Menbers do not need to give any presentations! Second priority will be given to those who submit abstracts (and give presentations). Within this group; the selection criteria will be a mix of nationality, type of organisation, scientific and technological novelty and quality. Third priority will be special key partners. THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE TRAVEL GRANT from the InfoDev Programme should inform Dr. Sindre Langaas, langaas@grida.no, by 28 Feb. 1998. (This also includes Advisory Board members).

A decision on the selected travel grant holders can be expected end March. All other BALLERINA partners will have to cover participation costs themselves.

QUESTIONS?

If there are any questions, or if you have bad WWW connections and thus difficulties in accessing the RT98 web site, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely

Dr. Sindre Langaas
BALLERINA Network co-ordinator
langaas@grida.no

Phone: +46-8-161737
Fax: +46-8-158417
Address:
UNEP/GRID-Arendal
c/o Dept. of System Ecology
S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Revised: 23 Feb, 1998
Maintained by Sindre Langaas, BALLERINA Network Co-ordinator, langaas@grida.no