HELPING, the new scientific decade of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences, aims to address the water crises communities across the world are facing, by combining process understanding at local and global scales, integrating new technologies, and co-creating knowledge. In all of this, communication is paramount, both within the scientific community (between hydrologists and scientists in other fields, working in different parts of the world, and at different scales) and outside of it (with stakeholders, decision-makers, and local communities). We aim to co-create a community paper to gain a broader understanding of communication and outreach strategies that can help achieve HELPING’s global goal, and engage different water-related stakeholders across the world. The paper also aims to reflect on strategies that have been leveraged by similar scientific initiatives, and lessons learned from previous scientific decades (Panta Rhei, PUB), as well as on the changes that science communication has undergone over the past few decades.

This is the first in-person/hybrid event to refine the vision for this paper (the "why"), and outline the questions (the "what") we want to address through the paper. We would also like to discuss the next conceptual and logistical steps towards the paper, and distribute responsibilities for the corresponding process (the "how"). The meeting agenda is tentatively an introduction to the overall idea, discussions within smaller groups on some seed questions about each objective, and a joint inter-group discussion to close out the session.