After hundreds of scientific publications and dozens of PhD and postdocs having completed their research, the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSC) has now closed.

NESSC began its ambitious research programme in 2014. Its aim: to better understand the processes behind climate change and to improve future climate projections and predictions. As a virtual research centre, it brought together scientists with a background in physics, earth sciences, ecology and mathematics, from the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Utrecht University, VU University Amsterdam and Wageningen University.

NESSC was built upon the shoulders of the Darwin Center for Biogeosciences, the science programme from 2004 until 2014 that nurtured a new generation of geoscientists. Many people were involved in the successful application for the Gravitation grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science which financed NESSC, and the pivotal role of professor Jaap Sinninghe Damsté at NIOZ deserves special mentioning. In its second phase, NESSC received additional funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, allowing 14 additional PhD students to join NESSC’s research programme.

NESSC Legacy
After ten years of research the legacy of NESSC could not be clearer: in its scientific contribution of over 700 peer-reviewed publications, in its outreach with the educational Tipping Point Ahead programme, and most importantly in its network of more than 100 interdisciplinary trained scientists: over 80 PhDs and over 20 postdocs contributed to NESSC.

On 11 and 12 April 2024, PhD and postdoc researchers of NESSC presented their latest findings at the final official gathering in conference centre Kontakt der Kontinenten in Soesterberg. Abstracts of the submitted presentations have been collected, supplemented with additional results, and now published online in the NESSC Research Legacy Booklet (open access). It presents only a sampling of the breadth and diversity of NESSC’s research themes, while also demonstrating NESSC’s still growing scientific legacy.

Similar in the way how NESSC has built upon the legacy of the Darwin Center, the legacy of NESSC provides shoulders whereupon scientific research can continue today. Starting in 2025, the ten-year research programme EMBRACER will further our understanding on climate feedbacks.

Publication:
NESSC Research Legacy Booklet (pp. 40).
Dankert, B.T. (Ed.), NESSC, Utrecht University, 2024.
https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-W8UCIE