Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMSO-Link (Implementation of the Strategy to Ensure the EMSO ERIC’s Long-term Sustainability)

Teaser

EMSO-Link underpins the long-term sustainability of EMSO ERIC (www.emso.eu), that coordinates the provision of services, supplying power, communications, sensors and data for continuous, high-resolution, (near-)real-time, ocean observations across a multi- and...

Summary

EMSO-Link underpins the long-term sustainability of EMSO ERIC (www.emso.eu), that coordinates the provision of services, supplying power, communications, sensors and data for continuous, high-resolution, (near-)real-time, ocean observations across a multi- and inter-disciplinary range of research areas. Presently EMSO ERIC members are: Italy (hosting), France, Spain, UK, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Romania. EMSO pursues to be part of the upcoming EOOS to achieve the first sustained, standardized and permanent monitoring network of the European seas.
EMSO-Link will speed up the establishment of EMSO ERIC governance rules and procedures and will facilitate the coordination of EMSO RI construction, operation, extension and maintenance.
Specifically, it will:
• Reinforce and expand the EMSO ERIC membership to optimize the inclusion of the whole European marine technology and research institutions
• Progress towards coordinated operations of the infrastructure nodes, interoperability and standardization as well as capacity increase and synchronizing funding
• Enhance stakeholders active engagement (e.g., marine operators, industry, academia)
• Enhance relations with marine RIs through MoUs
• Strengthen EMSO ERIC contribution to European economic growth and innovation serving and cooperating with Industry and SMEs.

Work performed

EMSO-Link is structured in 9 WPs:
1 Project Management
2 Standards and interoperability
3 Infrastructure access
4 Pilots of access provision
5 Business Plan and technology transfer
6 Communication and outreach
7 Dissemination and External Relations
8 Capacity Building
9 Transnational Access to EMSO infrastructure
All the plan has been successfully fulfilled. All the deliverables (19) have been submitted and all the milestones (13) reached.
The work performed is related to the first 8 WPs and summarized below, the WP9 will start in the second period.
WP1 The project management is mainly devoted to monitor the project. Quality control procedures were also defined for the assessment and monitoring of the technical progress. The Advisory Board has been established.
WP2 The activity first focused on the organization of the «EMSO ERIC All Regions Workshop (EEARW)», a 3-day with >120 participants from EMSO Regional Teams, potential new sites, industry and other RIs. The workshop allowed to draw a comprehensive picture of infrastructures and included the «1st Best practices meeting», providing material for a detailed mapping of the facilities and for the Science & Technology plan. The implementation of the Label began with collection of material from previous projects.
WP3 Work has been dedicated to arrive to the establishment of the Regional Teams. A Service Level Agreement has been drafted and optimization of ordinary and extraordinary maintenance has been studied. The set-up of the user access system to the infrastructure started.
WP4 An important first step toward the science services roadmap was to identify and document the existing observatory infrastructure. A call for Transnational Access access was issued (April-September 2018). It had a good participation with 4 proposals submitted.
WP5 The first version of the CAPEX and OPEX was assessed. A dedicated Funding Task Group was created to explore funding strategies for the medium and long-term sustainability of EMSO ERIC. An IP strategy has been set out on the best approach for IPR for EMSO ERIC. The first release of the Business Plan was delivered.
WP6 The plan of all communication actions was produced. The greatest part of the activities was dedicated to the production of the communication material including a video and 2 press releases.
WP7 Significant steps have been taken towards enlarging and reinforcing the existing membership of the EMSO community as well as increasing international cooperation. The EEARW had the merit to enhance the coordination and efficiency of the teams already involved, and attract new participants, to pave the way for the involvement of new countries, observatory sites and scientific disciplines. Representatives from 4 extra-European RIs (ONC, JAMSTEC, IMOS and OOI) were also invited generating thus new synergies and stimulating the creation of a truly global integration. A MoU between EMSO ERIC and ONC was signed in May 2018. Representatives from other non-EMSO European observatories were also invited to the workshop to consolidate the relationship with the countries that are not yet EMSO ERIC members.
WP8 The activity was dedicated to the design of the training plan with the release of its first draft. An overview of the training material and events in EU and non-EU RIs and EU projects has been made. During the All Regions workshop a session was dedicated to the EMSO ERIC Service Groups (SGs) to identify the ways to organize and implement them, including the Science SG that has been established.

Final results

The EMSO-Link outcomes to set up governance, rules and procedures necessary for the construction, operation and extension of the EMSO distributed RI will be exploited by EMSO ERIC beyond the project duration. EMSO-Link is the key-project aimed to ensure EMSO long-term sustainability, to strengthen its capacity, and to accelerate the ramp-up of the RI to full European-scale implementation.
The achieved results of EMSO-Link till now have documented the effectiveness of strategic investment in creating tools useful in sustaining and speeding up the full development of EMSO ERIC with the achievement of its strategic goals. Society\'s direct and indirect return are characterized by a high socio-economic impact.
The impacts of the EMSO-Link project are:
• Provide Europe with a comprehensive landscape of sustainable RIs: Foster cooperation and mutual support of RIs and in particular the position of the European marine research community, the involvement of the stakeholders including industry.
• Strengthen ERA in the global research environment: Contribute to reinforce the pan-European marine RI, counterpart of international RIs.
• Reinforce the partnership between EC, Member and Associated Countries and relevant stakeholders: Support the consolidation the cooperation between Countries in the development of underwater observatories. It can accelerate membership by States already involved in previous projects (such as Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, Norway), as well as by new Countries and Associated Countries such as Cyprus and Malta.
• Enhance the EU role in international organizations and multilateral fora: Supports the realization of EOOS providing long-term fixed-point observations in key sites for COPERNICUS.
• Support progress towards the development of global research infrastructures: It advances the achievement of a structured coordination of a European marine RI with counterpart non-European marine RIs (e.g., in Canada, USA, Japan, China and Australia), and also able to promote and develop interoperability with RIs in other domains.
• Enable research to address societal challenges with global dimensions: It ensures a faster and more effective deployment of the EMSO ERIC operational phase.
• Foster capacity-building and Research Infrastructure human capital development in targeted/relevant regions: It provides world-class training and scientific exchanges, opportunities for scientists, engineers and users within and beyond the Member States of the ERIC, pro-actively supporting mobility, capacity enhancement and pursuit of scientific excellence.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.emso.eu.