Marine Information Workshop for Industry: Showcasing publicly available resources to support innovation

Date
11/10/2016 - 12/10/2016

This workshop will facilitate a dialogue between two communities that do not traditionally come together, the European marine data and observation community – working to generate, aggregate and disseminate marine data – and the intermediary companies who can capitalize on these efforts to create value-added products and services. The H2020 COLUMBUS Marine Monitoring and Observations Node has identified that for European public marine data providers and aggregators, the views and opinions of these intermediaries are vital to maximize opportunities for innovation and service provision.

Marine information service providers and small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) developing innovative applications are crucial intermediaries in the marine data value chain. These intermediary companies create value-added data products and services for a large number of uses. Those include, among others: risk forecast and prevention, design and optimization of infrastructure for the off-shore sector, and compliance with European Union directives such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Marine Spatial Planning Directive.

A gap exists between what is available in open marine data from publicly-funded intitiatives and what maritime ‘end-users’ need in traditional industries such as shipping, oil and gas exploration, maritime transport or fisheries. It is a challenge for marine data providers to develop in a way to be fit-for-purpose for all end-users. Intermediary users, however, can take advantage of the public marine data resources and deliver very specific services for specific customers. Engaging with intermediary users is therefore a priority for European initiatives such as European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet), Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) and SeaDataNet. The intermediary companies understand the requirements of their particular maritime sector, can access data and information resources, and deliver derived goods and services. SMEs can also act in an entrepreneurial way capitalizing on publicly available marine data and information resources to develop new applications and services in non-traditional sectors.

This workshop is co-organized by EuroGOOS and EMODnet within the activities of the H2020 COLUMBUS project, and will be held as part of ‘A Connected Ocean‘ conference.