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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - AORAC-SA (Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Support Action)

Teaser

Summary

The Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Coordination and Support Action (AORA-CSA) was established through funding from the European Unionâ€™s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement Number 652677. The AORA-CSA supports the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance (AORA) implement the Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation. The AORA-CSA offers financial, logistical, administrative, technical and scientific supports to help smooth the path to progressing and advancing the aims of the AORA.
Recognizing the evolving nature of the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance (AORA), the key characteristics of this coordination and support action is that the partnership be flexible, responsive, inclusive, efficient, innovative, value-adding and supportive to the EC Directorate General for Research and Innovation â€“ the lead organisation in the European Union responsible for the implementation of the Galway Statement.

Work performed

\"The AORA Coordination and Support Action has just completed its fifty-fourth month of successful operation. The last 18 months have been very active and important months for this Support Action. A large \"\"AORA Next Steps\"\" workshop was organized in Dec 2018 to bring the AORA working groups, AORA-CSA work package leaders and Galway Statement Leadership Team together in Brussels to determine future supports required by the AORA of the AORA-CSA. In addition, there were many meetings throughout 2019 with the European Commission to agree direction and plan the various communications campaigns. During the year travel supports continued to be provided to bring European-based Experts to the various AORA Working Group meeting as well as supporting the logistical and organisational aspects of these meetings. The AORA Ecosystem System Approach to Ocean Health & Stressors Working Group with the support of the AORA-CSA published its Vision & Roadmap and this is now available on the website. An AORA Blue Economy Triple Helix Dialogue meeting at Ocean Business in Southampton was also held during this time frame and also supported by the AORA-CSA. The Marine Microbiome as a priority Research topic area saw its first steps begin with a first dialogue meeting held in Brussels on World Microbiome Day with full trilateral participation. Our Ocean Observation work package provided large logical and organisational supports to socialise the outputs of the AtlantOS EU Horizon 2020 research project. This work package provided travel supports for the participation of under-represented Atlantic region experts at the OceanObs\'19 ocean observation decadal conference. Final preparations were put to the organization of a Side Event at OceanObsâ€™19 to promote the All-Atlantic Ocean Observation strategy, and also promotion of the European Commissionâ€™s Special Session or Townhall Event â€˜A sustainable fit-for-purpose ocean observing system â€“ responding to users needsâ€™. Aquaculture WP continued to promote AORA by creating opportunities for AORA speakers and by providing travel supports travel as well as participating at other major events in Europe and in North America. For Ocean Literacy, of particular importance was the Seabed Mapping workshop held at EMSEA2018, where speakers supported by this WP discussed, with the OL community present, ways to convey the importance of seabed mapping to children of different ages and the methodologies to raise awareness about the need to map the ocean floor. WP 9 supported participation by European Experts at 2 Seabed Mapping workshops and also facilitated the development of a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science to disseminate to the Seabed Mapping community the directions being taken by the AORA in terms of mapping the Atlantic. WP 10 supported engagement by the AORA Seabed Mapping Working Group with industry members - this was a very successful workshop resulting in buy-in by the industry leaders present. It was decided in March 2019 to cease work on WP 11 the Knowledge Sharing Platform and instead bolster WP 2 Networking & Conferencing and WP 3 Communications & Dissemination. WP2 & 3 saw an extremely busy period with a very successful communications on AORA, development of media assets to bring that message to policy makers and the public and also the design, development and organisation of a summer school for All Atlantic Ocean Youth Ambassadors and provision of travel supports for wider Atlantic participation. The AORA trended in social media on two separate occasions with specially created #GoAtlanticBlue campaign and also the All Atlantic Youth Ambassadors - both bringing the Atlantic Ocean to the attention of the public.\"

Final results

\"1. A highly successful Industry engagement workshop with the AORA Seabed Mapping WG (the ASMIWG) came about in May 2018 and since that time industry has continued to engage with the WG. In addition, this WG continues to engage with the Seabed 2030 initiative.
2. A promotional social media campaign with emotionally compelling and appealing narrative - videos, infographics and other tools went out to tender at the end of the reporting period.
3. Creation and development of 2 videos communicating the spirit, achievements and future aspirations of the Galway Statement/AORA - The Last Great Exploration Campaign on Earth.
4. Creation of an inspired campaign #GoAtlanticBlue for public participation to celebrate our Atlantic Ocean and connections to it on World Oceans Day - this was piloted in June 2019 with over 60 landmarks participating in the campaign. High traffic venues were targeted with genuine transatlantic links as well as prestigious locations such as high culture destinations on the coast such as castles, traditional boats and communities as well as small medium sized entreprises right up to multinationals, academic organisations with marine research, government buildings and even to shopfronts all went Atlantic Blue. This was a successful pilot reaching at least 2.4 Million people and can now be rolled out along and across the Atlantic in 2020 over weekend June 5-June 8 to coincide with World Oceans Day.
5. The design, development and organisation of a Summer School for 22 All Atlantic Ocean Youth Ambassadors, provision of travel supports for these Youth Ambassadors and embedding them in the nominating organisations both within the AORA-CSA and also our sister Coordination and Support Action AANChOR. The social media campaign developed and executed for thsi event reached 2.8 million people.\"