EARLINET ACTRIS collaboration agreement signed and new EARLINET council elected

In July 2026, the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network (EARLINET) and ACTRIS signed a joint collaboration agreement. ACTRIS has been established on the heritage of several previous efforts, such as EARLINET, EUSAAR/CREATE, CLOUDNET, and EUROCHAMP, now being largest atmospheric research infrastructure (RI) in size. As a natural consequence of the establishment of ACTRIS, EARLINET has now developed into a network of lidar expertise and science. With the document, the two parties aim to elaborate their joint vision for the coming decade on a strategic level: 

EARLINET is now a flexible network of institutional lidar specialists rather than a strict measurement programme; members may contribute lidar development, retrieval algorithms or airborne/space‑borne expertise without being required to perform regular observations. This “incubator” role allows innovative ideas to be nurtured within EARLINET and later, if feasible, adopted by ACTRIS for operational use. Therefore, a strong collaboration between the ACTRIS National Facility Technical and Scientific Forum working groups and respective EARLINET experts and working groups is envisaged. Furthermore, EARLINET and ACTRIS aim to support each other for increasing the quantity and the quality of the aerosol lidar data in Europe but also in promoting ACTRIS standards towards institutions outside the RI. To achieve these goals, all opportunities for strengthening links—such as workshops, conferences, and COST actions—will be encouraged. 

With respect to the latter, the 2026 EARLINET General Assembly was held side-by-side with the annual EARLICOST meeting in Athens (September 2026). Among other topics, the new EARLINET council came together. Eleni Marinou, Michael Sicard, and Holger Baars were re-elected, while David Dionisi and Maria Filiglou/Nikolas Siomos (shared term) are new to the council. But there was no need to say goodbye to someone, as the former members Doina Nicolae and Lucia Mona now act as consultants representing ACTRIS in the council as it was stipulated in the EARLINET-ACTRIS collaboration agreement. Holger Baars continues as speaker. The council is looking forward to the next three years of EARLINET advancing aerosol‑related lidar research, e.g., by co-organizing the European Lidar Conference (next edition: 6–8 September 2027 at Réunion Island, France) but also by leveraging the COST action EARLICOST.

At the Athens meeting, participants also discussed how the NF working groups and EARLICOST activities—covering, e.g., aerosol‑cloud interaction studies, fluorescence lidar, and related topics—can be more closely aligned.

The EARLINET council at the EARLICOST annual meeting in Athens, from left to right: Lucia Mona (National Research Council, Italy), Maria Filioglou (Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finland), Michael Sicard (Laboratory of the Atmosphere and Cyclones, France), Holger Baars (Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, Germany), Davide Dionisi (National Research Council , Italy), Nikos Siomos (Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich,  Germany), and Eleni Marinou (National Observatory of Athens, Greece. Doina Nicolae (National Institute of R&D for Optoelectronics, Romania, shown in the lower, right) could not attend in person.