The Medias Network

General presentation

This is the reason why Medias-France decided, from its creation in 1994, to set up and coordinate the Medias network, made up mainly of scientists, but also of suppliers of services (public and private) and decision makers. In accordance with the denomination MEDIAS, this network was centered on the MEDIterranean and Subtropical Africa, including scientists of other areas which worked on this zone.
The prorogation of Medias-France in 2000 was accompanied by the extension of its sphere of activity, and thus of the Medias network, into other regions - Central Asia in particular.

This network is thus global. In practice, its structure is dominated by geographical and thematical sub-networks with mutual interaction. As examples, we can cite Ricamare - the Mediterranean sub-network (decision of the steering committee of the project), Medcom - the regional Committee of Start for the Mediterranean, and the new central asian sub-network.

The concept of network becomes more and more important nowadays, in particular with the spectacular development of electronic means of communication. It is in the policy of many international organizations, and particularly the European Commission, to support the creation and the activity of networks. With the will and strength for doing so, as it has shown in the past, the Medias network can adapt to a rapidly changing present - and thus playing an important part in the future.

The Medias-France network contributes to :

• the capacity of identification and direct exchange between members of the network,
• the circulation of scientific or other information (calls for proposals, reports, important decisions, etc.),
• the development of projects centered around common objectives.

• the Medias addressbook: a compilation of researcher's and organization's addresses,
• the Medias Newsletter is a bi-yearly bilingual neswletter.

In addition, the IGBP-France Newsletter, an essential tool for the French-speaking members of the network, is also on-line on the Medias-France website.

Medias-France also keeps up to date on global environment documentation and on free software for data management, Web interfaces and visualization tools.

Inside the network, Medias-France has signed particular conventions with some organizations: NOAA, Ciesin, Acmad, OSS, SCERT, SB-RAS/IOM. It provides also specific functions, such as the secretariat of the START regional Committee for the Mediterranean (Medcom).

The Medias network is a living structure; it is mainly what the members do with it. If you are interested by its activities, we invite you strongly to join the network. You can do it in the section "directory" of this website. Beyond that, we encourage you to send us any suggestion or criticism to improve the role and functioning of the Medias network; they will be examined with great attention.

You can also deposit news on the site of Medias-France. They will be available for consultation after validation of the webmaster.