Co-ordination of National and Regional Marine RTD Programmes in Europe: the MarinERA project

MarinERA is an EU 6th Framework Programme Era-Net with a total funding of 2.954 millions euros from 2004-2008.

MarinERA is a partnership of the leading Marine RTD Funding Organisations in 13 European Member and Accession States, supported by the Marine Board of the European Science Foundation (MB-ESF).  Together, these Funding Agencies represent an investment of circa €100 million /annum in marine research.  In addition, a range of Advisory members including seven international networks of research organisations (BONUS, ECORD-Net, EFARO, EuroGOOS, European Polar Board, IACMST, ICES) and two further Member State national funding agencies (DFG, French Ministry of Research) have associated themselves with the project.

MarinERA aims to support the role of marine research in achieving the Lisbon, Gothenburg and Barcelona objectives, particularly building towards a knowledge based economy by 2010. To implement this, MarinERA aims to coordinate national research programmes in marine sciences, resulting in added value.

• Maximise the output from investments made at national level;

• Establish a system complementary to the Commission Framework Programme and national programmes by bringing together national funding agencies, national research organisations and their analogues.

The MarinERA project objectives will then:

• Map European marine RTD programmes and specialised infrastructures to contribute towards the development of the marine element of the European Research Area, facilitating the creation of an internal market and quantifying the existing European marine research capacity;

• Facilitate the networking of Marine RTD Funding Agencies in the European Union, leading to a more cost effective and efficient use of Member State resources including scientific personnel, specialist infrastructures and planned investments;

• Contribute to the development of a European Marine Research Policy, identifying future challenges and opportunities and the priority research programmes that need to be put in place to address / benefit from them;

• Provide a basis for the sharing of available resources to address priority issues which are beyond the capacities of individual Member States;

• Progress the reciprocal opening of Member State Marine RTD Programmes, which has been identified as a key objective of the ERA.

Resultant benefits from MarinERA include:

• Improved co-operation and co-ordination through the mutual opening of Member State Marine RTD programmes, contributing to the creation of the marine element of the ERA;

• Increased and more effective use of collected data and information;

• Effective and efficient use of existing EU marine RTD capacities, infrastructures and investments;

• Added scientific value and cost efficiency to individual Member State Marine RTD programmes, and optimisation of expertise;

• Consideration of marine RTD issues which are beyond the capacities of individual Member States.

• Standardization of programme description and the infrastructure in order to facilitate easier comparisons and common evaluation. >

MarinERA Partners

• IFREMER (coordinator)

• Marine Board ESF

• Irish Marine Institute

• Research Council of Norway (RCN)

• Juelich Research Centre GmbH –Project Management Organisation Jülich (FZJ-PTJ)

• Ministerio Educacion y Ciencia (MEC)

• Academy of Finland (AKA)

• Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

• Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)

• General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Development, Greece (GSRT)

• Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT)

• Belgian Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy (PPS Science Policy)

• Science and Innovation Administration, Ministry of the Flemish Community (AWI - Belgium)

• Malta Council for Science and Technology (MCST)

• Ministry of Scientific Research and Information Technology, Poland (MSRIT)

Contact

Professor Jean-François Minster
Institut Français de Recherche pour l’exploitation de la Mer
Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, 155
F-92138 Issy-Les-Moulineaux
+33 1 46482121
typo3/esf_contacts_form.php?mail=06a05aa4669ec712c671b62a4528ecd1

Dr. Niamh Connolly
Executive Manager, European Science Foundation – Marine Board ESF
1 quai Lezay-Marnésia, B.P. 90015
67080 Strasbourg cedex, France
+33 (0)3 88 76 71 44
+33 (0)3 88 25 19 54

Category: Media Centre, Press Releases 2004