Today, 26th June, sees the closing date of the first call under Horison2020 related to the topic of Blue Growth. A number of the calls closing today are in actual fact CSAs, however amongst this is the interesting call for supporting the Atlantic Ocean Cooperation Research Alliance.
Since its launch last year in May 2013, through the Galway Statement, we did not get to hear much more about this Alliance between Canada, the US and the European Union. The goal of this partnership is to work together in order to better understand and “increase our knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean and its dynamic systems – including interlinks with the portion of the Arctic region that borders the Atlantic” and to promote the sustainable management of its resources.
So this call, may be the impetus for more work to be done in relation to this cooperation. In fact this H2020 call, totaling €15M, aims at addressing the following priority areas in an integrated way:
(i) Marine ecosystem-approach;
(ii) Observing systems;
(ii) Marine biotechnology;
(iii) Aquaculture;
(iv) Ocean literacy – engaging with society;
(v) seabed and benthic habitat mapping.
It is expected that this investment into research and also into the Alliance should bring about long term knowledge sharing that has also commercial potential for the EU in the Blue economy. We wait and see the outcomes of this call once evaluated and more importantly when implemented.
