The network
Methodological development, updating, maintenance and application of CAPRI are based on a network approach, in the first 15 years certainly dominated by the key developer Wolfgang Britz and a series of PhD projects supervised by Thomas Heckelei. In the meantime responsabilites have spread with main contributors in recent years being the Bonn team (U Bonn, EuroCARE), Thünen, SLU, JRC-Sevilla and JRC –Ispra. Over the years researchers from various universities and institutes (from Norway, Switzerland and Ireland) have contributed to CAPRI, which can be seen from the contributions to many publications.
The CAPRI modelling network may be defined as a ‘club’: there are currently no fees attached to its use but the entry in the network is controlled by the current club members. The members have agreed on a distribution of tasks to maintain and update the system. They as well contribute by acquiring new projects, by quality control of data, new methodological approaches, model results and technical solutions, and by organising events such as training sessions and preparing this documentation. It is currently considered if the club constitution needs an update as well.