Although the active Corona pandemic marks a disruption not only in daily routines but also at work, our work on the BSUIN project continues also from the home-office. 

Online meetings:

Gathering and traveling restrictions made it necessary to cancel the next major project meeting in June. However, these cutbacks cannot prevent us from continuing our project work. From the very beginning of the project, the focus was on online meetings for arrangements of the individual work packages. This experience, a shared database and the tools available to us will now be used to hold large meetings with our project partners even in this difficult time of crisis. This accounts also for project relevant workshops, as this was successfully demonstrated at the end of march 2020 with a workshop about service design hold by OUAS.

We gain important experience for the future and use this also a good opportunity to refine the procedures of such project online meetings because in the future the general assembly of the association to be founded as BSUIN's successor organization should also be made possible online. 

EGU Session online

Moreover, BSUIN has scheduled a special session at the EGU general assembly in May: “Multidisciplinary underground laboratories and test sites – what makes them tick?“. However, the EGU physical meeting had to be canceled. Nevertheless, the organizers make the best out of the situation and offer a variety of digital formats. There will be an interactive chat time for our session where everyone is welcome to join without the necessity to travel and pay registration fees. 

General overview: Follow the link
Time of the BSUIN session: Thursday, 7 May 2020, 16:15-18:00 
Join: Follow the link

Conclusion

Overall, these special times not only remind us of the unique conditions we have underground (with constant air conditions in a protected environment) but also of the interconnection and dependence on the outside world. Let us all learn from this to make the future a better place and make the best use of the underground space available.