Introduction to the TAC special issue: The RegCNET network

Fostering climate research in economically developing nations (EDNs) is especially important because the welfare and economies of these nations are particularly dependent on climate and its variability. A critical factor that undermines the advancement of research in EDNs is that many EDN scientists are confronted with scientific isolation and lack of exposure to state-of-the-art research methodologies. One of the means to ameliorate this problem is to build "south-south" (i.e. EDN-EDN) and "north-south" (i.e. EDN-EAN, or economically advanced nations) research partnerships, which become more effective when they are based on collaborative projects where the participants share their respective expertise. This is the central paradigm underlying the formation of the REGional Climate research NETwork, or RegCNET.