Accelerating Blue Growth through Marine and Maritime Knowledge Transfer
Ricardo Serrão Santos MEP and Chair of the “Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services” Working Group hosted on 22 February the event: Accelerating Blue Growth through Marine and Maritime Knowledge Transfer.
The COLUMBUS project, funded by Horizon2020, intends to demonstrate how it is possible to capitalise on the European Commission’s significant investment in marine and maritime research by ensuring accessibility and uptake of research Knowledge Outputs by end-users such as policy, industry, science and wider society. The project began in March 2015 and will come to an end in February 2018 by organising its final event in the Parliament.
The objective was to reflect on the lessons learned in the H2020 COLUMBUS project in relation to stepping up Knowledge Transfer from European funded research and innovation projects in the marine and maritime sphere. This was achieved by demonstrating, through a number of showcases, all the steps required for successful Knowledge Transfer. Moreover, examples of bodies implementing successful Knowledge Transfer systems were provided. In addition, the event underlined the advantages of a more proactive approach for Knowledge Transfer, supported by the appropriate resources throughout the process from funding and proposal evaluation to the research implementation and industry involvement.
The event gathered involved partners such as the European Commission, Member States, industry, the scientific community, NGOs, and civil society to share their views and further discuss with policy-makers the results and guidelines moving forward.