More than 20 members of SEA-UNICORN took part in this international online training course, focusing on ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning. Co-organised by the MBPC and the BlueMed Coordination and Support Action (in collaboration with the IOC-UNESCO and the MSP Global Initiative) the course was originally scheduled to take place physically in Venice in Spring 2020. It was then open to 40 mid-career researchers and marine planners, and involved eight SEA-UNICORN participants, among which half were trainees.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, the course had to be moved online, which allowed 3 more members of SEA-UNICORN’s WG3 to join its training team, and 12 Action participants to attend as trainees. The course consisted of three morning sessions with high-level experts to address multidisciplinary approaches to ecosystem-based management and maritime spatial planning. In the frame of the activities proposed by SEA-UNICORN’s WG3, a discussion on “Barriers to implementing Marine Functional Connectivity (MFC) studies to management and policy” was proposed to all participants. This allowed familiarizing SEA-UNICORN’s scientists with marine governance and the knowledge requirements for effective decision-making in marine policy/management. The notes from the discussion will also help produce a roadmap to improve knowledge exchange between MFC scientists and decision-makers and optimize dissemination of MFC research findings across stakeholder communities.
If the Covid-19 situation allows, selected trainees should still benefit from a physical workshop in the fall 2021. This workshop will be co-organized by SEA-UNICORN, in the frame of WG3 activities.
This unique training opportunity is also supported by the Marine Institute (Croatia), the CNR-ISMAR (Italy), the European Topic Centre of the University of Malaga (Spain), and the CPMR (France) with communication support from MedCities (Spain) and Latte Creative (Italy). Some parts of the sessions will be disseminated via MBPC social media.
Contacts:
Maria Beger (m.beger@leeds.ac.uk)
Rigers Bakiu (rigers.bakiu@ubt.edu.al)
