EN Official Journal of the European Union C 306/46

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions — A European Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research — A coherent European Research Area framework in support of a sustainable use of oceans and seas

COM(2008) 534 final

(2009/C 306/11)

On 3 September 2008 the European Commission decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 262 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the

‘Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions — A European Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research — A coherent European Research Area framework in support of a sustainable use of oceans and seas’

The Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 20 May 2009. The rapporteur was Marian KRZAKLEWSKI.

At its 454th plenary session, held on 10-11 June 2009 (meeting of 10 June 2009), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion unanimously.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

1.1 The European Economic and Social Committee recognises the content and proposals contained in the Commission Communication COM(2008) 534 as beneficial for the development of marine and maritime scientific research in the EU and considers that the strategy for marine and maritime research outlined in the Communication represents an opportunity for achieving the objectives set out in the Communication.

1.2 The Committee endorses the main objectives of the new Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research, especially those which, when achieved, will help integrate the individual marine and maritime research centres and programmes which exist in the different Member States.

1.2.1 The Committee believes that one effective method for overcoming the lack of integration in the research sector is the development of an appropriate research infrastructure. The Committee notes that the broad outline for developing this infrastructure, set out in the Communication, serve to achieve this aim.

1.2.2 In the Committee's view, to increase the level of integration in the research field, the Member States should tailor their strategies to the European research objectives set out in the Communication. Equally, the EU institutions should account of any feedback received from the Member States.

1.3 The Committee draws attention to the importance of informing civil society of the results of marine and maritime research. Coastal communities are particularly interested in the results of marine and maritime research as they will have an ever-increasing impact on the development of these regions.

1.4 In the Committee's view, providing the various marine and maritime research centres in Europe with access to databases used for such research in the different countries of the EU is one aspect which can have a significant impact on the effective implementation of marine and maritime research strategies. Accordingly, the Committee believes that access to databases could be increased by the Commission's proposal to launch a European marine observation and data network (EMODnet).

1.5 The Committee views as priority research on regional and global ecosystems and how they relate to the issue of climate change and its impact.

1.6 The Committee considers the following four key regions to be core areas for European marine and maritime research: a) the Baltic Sea region b) the Mediterranean and Black Sea region c) the Atlantic and North Sea region d) the Arctic Ocean region.

1.7 The Committee wishes to highlight the importance of establishing a common set of comprehensive indicators (for each of the regions identified in Point 1.6), calculated on the basis of jointly used databases. This issue should be addressed in more detail by the Commission and the Council in the follow-up work to the Communication. The Committee believes it would be particularly useful to develop further the indicators describing the state of marine ecosystems and their evolution.

1.7.1 The indicators describing the state of the marine ecosystems will provide a basis for assessing the effectiveness of any action taken to ensure the protection and sustainable management of maritime resources and will enable the observation and evaluation of any changes occurring within marine ecosystems.

1.8 It is important to ensure the continuity of marine and maritime research work, and the new strategy should ensure this to a far greater extent. There have been several recent cases of important marine and maritime research projects being terminated.

1.9 It is vital to ensure that the research requested is relevant to the economic activity of both large businesses and SMEs. Equally, in this context, it is important to provide enterprises with better access to the results of such research, so that they can make use of it. This is why the process of informing stakeholders and coastal communities about the plans, scope and results of such research has such an important role to play.

1.10 It is also necessary to resolve the issue of those fields of marine and maritime scientific research which are not covered by the European Research Strategy and which, as a result, experience difficulties in securing funding for their projects. For this reason, a reference to supporting such research through dedicated Commission funds should be included in the documents drawn up as part of the follow-up work to this Communication.

1.11 The Committee believes that the Commission's future action in the field of marine and maritime research should focus more on the threats to the natural biodiversity of the Mediterranean, Baltic, North and Black Seas caused by the progressive loss of natural habitats for marine flora and fauna.

1.12 The Committee believes that promoting the creation and supporting the development of existing partnerships for marine and maritime research represents a key aspect of the strategy. Accordingly, the EESC endorses the Commission's plan to launch a new governance model for research that will take the form of a ‘Forum’ bringing together a ‘partnership sustainable over the long term’ and urges the Commission to draw up proposals in the short term to create a network of contacts between scientific communities involved in marine and maritime research, thereby helping to harmonise the process of creating partnerships.

1.12.1 In the Committee's view, the proposed ‘forum’ should, in addition to scientists, also encourage the participation of representatives of the various stakeholders involved along with marine and maritime policy-makers.

1.12.2 Further to the recently established European Fisheries Control Agency, it would be desirable to involve the agency in the work of the ‘forum.’ The Committee considers that the agency should play an important role within the ‘forum.’ Its opinion should also be sought when drawing up research plans, in its areas of competence.

1.12.3 The Committee encourages the Commission to set up the planned advisory mechanism for the two-way exchange of information between the scientific community and maritime policy-makers.

1.13 The Committee calls on the Commission to support the construction of oceanographic research vessels in the Member States in order to step up marine and maritime research, improve its quality and broaden the range of research topics covered. In the Committee's view, a decision should ideally be taken to establish a pan-European marine and maritime research facility.

1.14 Taking into account the existence, importance and the development of a regional infrastructure for marine and maritime research within the EU (1), the Committee, whilst recognising and endorsing the assistance to be provided in terms of regional needs mapping, as outlined in the Communication, calls on the Commission to consider developing links between ‘large’ (European and national) and ‘small’ (regional) research networks when defining the scope of these needs.

1.15 As a final remark on the conclusions and recommendations presented in the opinion, the Committee urges the Commission in its work on the follow-up to the communication, to assess the impact of marine and maritime research not only on the sustainable maritime economy, but also on sustainable development in general.

2. Context

2.1 The European Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research presented in Commission Communication (2008) 534 constitutes an essential part of the action plan (2) accompanying the Communication on An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union (3). The outlined strategy also represents a continuation of the Galway (4) and Aberdeen (5) declarations, two key maritime policy documents.

2.2 The strategy set out in the communication under consideration also puts into effect the EU Programme outlined in the Green Paper on The European Research Area: New Perspectives (6) and its specific recommendations contained in the Council Conclusions (7) on the launch of the ‘Ljubljana Process’ — ‘towards the full realisation of the European Research Area.’

2.2.1 In this context, the communication under discussion represents an example of a coherent European Research Area framework in support of a sustainable use of oceans and seas.

2.3 A number of EESC opinions in recent years have outlined the Committee's views on a series of Commission documents dealing with the EU's maritime policy in general and the European Research Area. These opinions did not focus more widely on the issue of European marine and maritime research largely due to the fact that the EU institutions had not put forward any documents which fully addressed the issue of marine and maritime-related scientific research.

2.3.1 Among the EESC opinions mentioned above, it is worth highlighting those in which the Committee called for more marine and maritime research in the fisheries sector (8).

3. General comments

3.1 Given the increasing scope of marine and maritime research in the European Union and its ever-greater role, it is essential to ensure the integration and coordination of such research.

3.2 The approach set out in the Communication represents an important opportunity to develop European marine and maritime research, in particular by: — making better use of funding for marine and maritime research; — strengthening the international dimension of research as a common source of knowledge and skills; — placing a greater emphasis on environmental issues and innovation; — integrating the various fields of research.

3.3 The Communication's proposal to establish closer ties between existing European institutes specialised in the field of marine and maritime research, with the aim of eventually creating a European network of European sea and ocean research institutes, provides an important impetus for taking further joint action in the field of European marine and maritime research and may be considered to be an important step towards building the capacity of the EU's marine and maritime research sector.

3.4 The Communication refers to the activity of scientific research platforms, such as the ESFRI (9) or the principle of ensuring European support for marine and maritime research with a global dimension, which can help achieve the objectives of the EU's integrated maritime policy.

3.4.1 The Committee endorses the ESFRI initiative, which represents a significant opportunity for marine and maritime research communities across Europe. The ESFRI's activity should also be useful for a wide range of interest groups, including industry and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and regional science and research communities. Ensuring that SMEs have access to a common research infrastructure is a matter of considerable importance.

3.4.2 It is also vital to ensure close cooperation between scientists and sea/maritime resource users as well as between scientists and institutes which specialise in protecting the marine environment and NGOs.

3.5 As regards the issue of the integration of established marine and maritime research disciplines, as proposed in the communication, the implementation of the strategy outlined in the document should make use of the results of the cooperation between the EU Member States under initiatives such as ERA-NET and ERA-NET PLUS aimed at coordinating scientific research. These results will provide data and information on common EU research priorities and on those areas of research where the Member States are prepared to strengthen their cooperation.

3.5.1 One example of a marine and maritime research initiative involving the participation of all the countries bordering a European sea is the European Economic Interest Grouping which is preparing to implement a joint Baltic Sea research programme (BONUS) under Article 169 of the EC Treaty.

3.5.2 In the opinion of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (10), effective coordination should be ensured between initiatives aimed at integrating research activities, for instance through building networks of Poles of Excellence, as well as via initiatives aimed at integrating research funding programmes, for instance through Era-Nets.

3.5.3 The integration and coordination of marine and maritime research should provide easier access to information about the marine environment. It should also lead to savings as funding is often currently used to conduct identical or very similar research in several different research centres simultaneously.

3.6 The marine and maritime research strategy set out in the communication attaches a large degree of importance to ensuring that marine and maritime research funding under the 7th Research Framework Programme is used as leverage to promote a synergy effect between Member States’ research efforts and, where necessary, reach a critical mass to address major cross-thematic marine research challenges.

3.6.1 Given the need to achieve synergies between research activities, it is vital that future scientific research focus on, among other things, the sustainable support, collection and management of data on the seas

3.6.2 It is important to ensure that action aimed at achieving synergies between research projects takes account of the various regional approaches. In the opinion of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (11), the regions support the objective of a better coordination of marine and maritime research programmes in Europe, an aim which is pursued, for example, by the Era-Net scheme, and, in future, by the joint programming.

3.6.3 However, as highlighted in the CPMR documents, projects funded under Era-Net have so far rarely involved regions. It would therefore be useful to either set up new funding schemes to coordinate regional research programmes that do not have a sufficient critical mass to integrate major Era-Net projects or to establish conditions of coordination between regional authorities and stakeholders involved within Era-Nets. Such coordination should also ideally be organised on the basis of maritime basins.

3.6.4 Coordination between Structural Funds, the Framework Programme and other European funding sources is also a key objective. Such coordination can only result from a coherent use of European funding sources by beneficiaries such as researchers and SMEs and of a coherent programming of funds in which the regional level plays a crucial role.

3.7 The strategy outlined in the communication recommends the design of an effective and innovative research governance framework that engages scientists, policy-makers and the public, so as to achieve shared understanding and informed decision-making based on sound scientific knowledge.

3.7.1 This approach to governance in research should be viewed in a positive light. The Commission has made it possible for Member State governments to establish a new framework for marine and maritime research involving scientists, industry representatives and public authorities, an opportunity which should be seen as a step in the right direction.

3.7.2 Given the role which the regions play in supporting maritime transport and research, they should be considered — along with the regional economic and social councils which are also often active at local level — as partners in the proposed system of governance for marine and maritime research.

4. Specific comments

4.1 The Committee believes that the list of major research topics requiring a cross-thematic approach outlined in Box 2 should be supplemented as follows: — by including in the above-mentioned list cultural and sociological research on the circumstances and evolution of communities living in the EU's maritime and ocean regions; — by ensuring that the scope of the research conducted by the network of research institutes covers the creation and development of structures for the sustainable support and management of data on the seas (linked to the objectives of the Natura 2000 programme), including the creation of GIS (Geographic Information System) maps for maritime and coastal regions, which will be useful for spatial planning and the integrated management of maritime regions; — by attaching a greater importance to marine and marine research conducted outside Europe aimed at implementing economic strategies, e.g. research into new transport options or the mining of raw materials in the Arctic region as a result of the effects of climate change as well as research on fishing in areas outside Europe which are particularly important for the EU's supply needs; — it is important to place a greater emphasis on research covering ocean floors and trenches; in the case of these types of projects, it is important to collaborate with countries from outside the EU. For this reason, agreements should be signed with Canada, Russia, the USA or Japan regarding research in the Arctic region; — by highlighting more the need to share research on new technologies in the field of seas and oceans relating to, for example, extraction activities in European maritime areas or investments in renewable energy in these regions; — by making efforts to combine some of the research topics listed in the table with the marine and maritime research work carried out by the armed forces; — it is important that the work on the research topics listed in the table is carried out in accordance with the principle of regionalism.

4.2 The Committee urges the Commission to refer directly to the list of examples of pan-European research infrastructure projects, as identified by ESFRI, and which may be developed during FP7 (2007-2013), in the documents drawn up on the basis of the Communication when discussing and assessing progress on building new observation and research infrastructure.

4.2.1 The following projects on the list are in the field of marine and maritime scientific research: — Coastal research vessels (primarily on the Baltic Sea) — The ‘Aurora Borealis’ icebreaker research vessel — The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observatory (EMSO) — EURO ARGO European infrastructure for research and protection of biological diversity (Global Ocean Observing Infrastructure).

4.3 The Committee believes there is a need to pay special attention to focusing support on building more oceanographic research vessels, which represent the principal marine and maritime research tool.

4.3.1 While the coordination and research activities conducted by research institutes are very important, oceanographic research vessels are needed if we are to investigate what is taking place further away from the shoreline. Sadly, however, Europe has only a modest fleet of research vessels. If it is to carry out comprehensive and effective marine and maritime research, the EU must above all have appropriate research vessels at its disposal.

4.4 On the issue of developing new models for higher education in the marine/maritime field, as raised in the Communication, the EESC notes one field of studies where synergies have been achieved and which merits consideration when identifying examples of educational innovation is sozology. This university discipline covers the nature-based, technical, economic and legal aspects inherent in the modern approach to sustainable development, and therefore dovetails with the contemporary approach to the maritime economy.

4.5 Considering that one of the Communication's main objectives is to achieve synergies in the field of European marine and maritime research, the EESC believes that it is possible to ensure the closer integration of research and, accordingly, increased synergies through the adoption of a comprehensive approach to the field of research in question.

4.5.1 One example of such activity is the synergy-based approach to coastal area research covering both the effects of climate change (e.g. rising sea levels) and geological events, as well as recreational opportunities etc. (necessary cooperation in the environmental, technical, economic and legal fields).

4.6 In order to achieve synergies in the area of marine and maritime research, the Committee believes that it would be appropriate to create a three-level system (organisational pyramid) to manage the finances allocated to research projects. The following core areas (regions) would represent the foundation of this structure: a) the Baltic Sea region; b) the Mediterranean and Black Sea region; c) the Eastern and Central Atlantic and North Sea region; d) the Arctic Ocean region.

4.6.1 A regional or inter-regional structural management centre should be set up to coordinate all action taken to share information and create inter-disciplinary research objectives, which integrate the research policies of the countries located in (or bordering on) the above four regions, drawing on the experience and marine/maritime scientific/research infrastructure of these four core regions.

4.6.2 The central coordination system located in the European Research Area, which would also act as an information centre on research funding, would constitute the highest level of this organisational structure.

4.7 A regional approach is necessary given the individual environmental and natural specificities of the various sea basins. While they share many characteristics common to the entire marine environment, the natural events and processes underway in these areas are different in nature and in the way they run their course. This is the case for instance, when we compare what is taking place in the Baltic Sea region with the situation in warmer seas e.g. the Mediterranean or Black Seas, or the Atlantic coast whose tides are a characteristic feature.

4.8 There is an urgent need to set-up ‘associations’ within these specific regions, using the existing infrastructure as a basis. Examples would be a Baltic association of research stations, research vessels, research institutes or higher education institutes.

4.8.1 The aim of these associations should be to share information on research and educational tasks being carried out and to carry out joint agreed research and educational projects.

4.9 One important field of marine and maritime research which has achieved clear synergies is research into eutrophication and its effects. While it is a worldwide phenomenon, some of its causes and effects may differ in each of the proposed regions (basins), confirming the need to adopt a regional approach. Equally, however, there is scope for clear synergies considering the causes of the phenomenon, research methods and impact analysis, particularly economic analysis, as well as the related medical/epidemiological aspects.

Brussels, 10 June 2009. The President of the European Economic and Social Committee Mario SEPI

(1) According to the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMRE) — 20 % of marine and maritime research is conducted in the regions.

(2) SEC(2007) 1278.

(3) COM(2007) 575.

(4) Galway Declaration; http://www.eurocean2004.com/pdf/galway_declaration.pdf

(5) Aberdeen Declaration; http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/pdf/Aberdeen_Declaration_final_2007.pdf

(6) COM(2007) 161.

(7) Council Conclusions on the launch of the ‘Ljubljana Process’ — June 2008.

(8) EESC opinions calling for the allocation of more funding for marine and maritime research (OJ C 318, 23. 12. 2006, pp. 117-121, OJ C 224, 30. 8. 2008, pp. 77-80).

(9) European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures.

(10) Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe ‘CPMR Draft Working Document on Marine & Maritime Research’ — November 2008.

(11) See Footnote 11.