Part of ECMWF’s year of activities for its 50th anniversary takes place this week (7–11 April) in Bonn, Germany, including a series of workshops and seminars and the launch of three new publications.
The workshops and seminars are held to celebrate our collaboration across the globe, particularly with our Member and Co-operating States.
The events cover a broad range of topics, and they are an opportunity to celebrate the openness of our community, and the willingness to help and support each other.
Information about Bonn events
The Bonn week has five events, which take place simultaneously during the week. They are taking place at the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV) and at the Gustav Stresemann Institute (GSI), with many sessions being livestreamed. See the specific event links below for programmes and livestream details:
- Annual Seminar 2025, 7–11 April
- Workshop on data assimilation: initial conditions and beyond, 9–10 April
- Workshop on surface process coupling and its interactions with the atmosphere, 9–10 April
- The evolution of Copernicus Services at ECMWF: challenges and opportunities (invited guests only, no public livestream), 8–9 April
- Workshop on ancillary data for land surface and Earth system modelling, 9–10 April
Some workshops will have joint sessions with the Annual Seminar.
Publications
To showcase achievements at ECMWF over the past five decades, and to consider how we can prepare for what the future will bring, staff from across ECMWF explain our key areas of work and offer their visions for the future in a series of publications being released in 2025.
The first three papers are available and can be viewed on our website.
- Fifty years of Earth system modelling at ECMWF (PDF, 1.8 MB)
- Fifty years of data assimilation at ECMWF (PDF, 1.8 MB)
- Ten years of Copernicus at ECMWF (PDF, 2.2 MB)
The next papers, which will be published later in the year, are on the topics of High-performance computing and infrastructure; Meeting our users’ needs; and Machine learning.
Through the six topics, we aim to cover as much as possible of our work.
Later in the anniversary year
Later in 2025, there will be two further weeks in which we offer a range of workshops and events.
- Bologna, 15–19 September: There will be a strong focus on our users, with the Using ECMWF’s Forecasts (UEF) 2025 event, but also on our technology, with the 21st biennial workshop on high-performance computing (HPC Workshop). This will also be an opportunity to learn about the latest developments in the EU-funded Destination Earth initiative and in ECMWF’s Code for Earth innovation programme. Finally, the European Weather Cloud (EWC) User Workshop will be an occasion for the community to meet and share updates on their activities.
- Reading, 1–5 December: This will focus on machine learning, especially on joint endeavours with the national meteorological services of our Member States. A 50th anniversary symposium will also be held.
The year is an opportunity for our community to take stock of where we are and where we need to be to address the challenges of predicting severe and extreme weather. It is a time to express our gratitude to all who have worked at ECMWF or contributed through schemes such as Fellowships and graduate trainee programmes; to visiting scientists and our partners in academia and the private sector; and above all to our Member and Co-operating States, who have been part of this journey for five decades.
More information
For further information, see the ‘Anniversary’ page.