COLUMBUS, a flagship Horizon 2020 project, held its first conference in Brussels on 2 March. About 60 participants attended, including the 26-member-strong consortium, the COLUMBUS External Advisory Board, as well as MEP Ricardo Serrão Santos and Head of Marine Resources Unit at DG R&I Sigi Gruber and the COLUMBUS project officer Marco Weydert. COLUMBUS is tasked to propose concrete solutions to transfer valuable EU marine research project results into applicable contributions to the Blue Growth. Knowledge transfer is critical to capitalize on the European research efforts, towards sustainable use of marine resources. MEP Serrão Santos stressed that open and shared research data is a prerequisite for a European RTDI leadership. Sigi Gruber stated that dissemination and exploitation of research project results must be an important part of any Horizon 2020 project.
EuroGOOS delivered a presentation on the European Ocean Observing System, EOOS. Developed as an end-to-end framework for the European ocean observing, EOOS will be built on an open data principle. EOOS will deliver a common vision for the dispersed ocean observing community and play a key role in transferring marine data and information to a broad range of end-users.
EuroGOOS partner initiatives, AtlantOS and EMODnet, further highlighted the societal and economic potential of the European ocean observing as well as its critical role in informing policy.
- COLUMBUS conference programme
- EOOS flyer
- EOOS pilot website
- European Parliament resolution of 8 September 2015 on untapping the potential of research and innovation in the blue economy to create jobs and growth (2014/2240(INI))
