GEM Strategy, reports

Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Strategy 2022-2026

The GEM strategy 2022-2026 is responding to national and international concerns about climate and ecosystem change by addressing science agendas and data needs of Arctic Council working groups (AMAP and CAFF) and UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The GEM Strategy provides a guidance and decision-making framework that will help GEM align its resources and objectives with its long-term vision. The strategy forms an overview of what GEM is striving to achieve, in order to guide GEM scientists and communicate to the broader scientific community, decision makers and other stakeholders what they can expect from GEM.

Strategy 2022-2026 

Strategy 2022-2026 - Executive summary


Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Strategy 2017-2021. Mid-term status evaluation 2019

In 2018, the GEM steering group committee requested a ‘Mid-term status evaluation’ to make sure the programme were on track with the 2017-2021 strategy, and to identify focus areas for the remaining part of the strategy period. Two years into the strategy, the evaluation was finalized in 2019. It provides a status of what has been achieved so far in relation to general GEM objectives and initiatives, as well as Basic Programme specific milestones and deliverables.

Download the report here


Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Strategy 2017-2021

The strategy describes the GEM vision, mission and objectives for 2017-2021. This period will consolidate existing long term monitoring and expand the programme to enable upscaling of results and contribute to applied science initiatives. The report has been produced by the GEM Coordination Group on request from the GEM Steering Committee. The working programme was endorsed by the GEM Steering Committee on 12 September 2016. 

Download the report here.


Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) evaluation - Final Report

An independent evaluation of the GEM programme and its results was carried out in 2014 by a panel of three leading scientist. The overall objective of the evaluation was to assess the scientific, economic and organizational effectiveness of GEM and its scientific and societal impact. The opinions, statements, conclusions and recommendations presented in the report are solely the responsibility of the three authors. The GEM Coordination group and the GEM Steering committee will during 2015 and onwards consider the findings and recommendations of the evaluation panel, with a view to further strengthen the GEM programme.

For more information please see “Executive Summary and Recommendations” and the full report “Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) Evaluation - Final Report”


GEM Strategy and Working Programme 2011-2015

The report describes how the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Programme (GEM) will implement the Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Strategy, 2011-15 during the period 2012-15. The report has been produced by the GEM Coordination Group on request from the GEM Steering Committee. The working programme was endorsed by the GEM Steering Committee on 25 November 2011.

Download: GEM Strategy and Working Programme 2011-2015 If the report is too big for you to download - it has been divided in to part A and part B. Download part A (6.7 MB) and part B (4.9 MB)

Workshop reports

GEM Synergy report 2018

In the strategy from 2017, the GEM program will look at opportunities to collaborate with other initiatives that look at climate change and its effects elsewhere in Greenland. Therefore, GEM initiated a workshop in February 2018 at the Institute of Natural Sciences, with the participation of several Research Institutions from Greenland and Denmark. In addition, representatives from the Greenland Self-Government and the Ministry of the Environment in Denmark participated.

Download the workshop report: Synergies among long-term natural science monitoring initiatives in Greenland


Arctic Biodiversity Congress Report 2018

GEM hosted a session at the Arctic Biodiversity Congress in October 2018. The session title was “Building long-term ecosystem monitoring programs to feed Arctic and international biodiversity assessments”. The session explored how long-term ecosystem-based monitoring programs are designed and how they feed into the Circumpolar Biodiversity Monitoring Programme’s (CBMP) assessments, plans and strategies.

Download ABC report 2018


AMAP 2017

The Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring (GEM) programme held a workshop on linkages between national programmes and Arctic/international networks, programmes and organisations at the AMAP conference ‘Bringing knowledge to action’, Washington USA, April 2017.

Download AMAP Workshop Report