The COLUMBUS project was presented for the first time at the 2015 Aquaculture Europe (AE2015) conference last month. The conference took place in Rotterdam from 21-23 October 2015, and highlighted many different and important aspects of aquaculture as the conference title suggested “Aquaculture, Nature and Society”.

The COLUMBUS project was presented by its project manager, Cliona Ní Cheallachain, to raise awareness of the project and its objectives. This presentation took place on the morning of Thursday 22 October in the Knowledge Management, Transfer and Extension Networks session. Following the presentation there was a robust discussion on the value of such an initiative with the end conclusion being that COLUMBUS achieving its objectives will surely result in positive impact for European Aquaculture.

The COLUMBUS project, a flagship European Union-funded Blue Growth initiative, directly responds to the EU’s demand that Europe needs to get more innovation out of its research, focusing on the marine and maritime aspects. It has successfully kicked-off recently and has moved into the first stages of managing knowledge and carrying-out Knowledge Transfer of marine research outputs to measurably increase their uptake and application by different end-users, such as industry, policy makers, and society in general.

AquaTT designed and wrote the proposal for COLUMBUS, and is the Strategic and Operational Leader of the project, as well as carrying out the project management and leadership of three work packages. For more information on COLUMBUS, please visit the project website (www.columbusproject.eu) or email its project manager Cliona Ní Cheallacháin (cliona@aquatt.ie).

Introduced in previous COLUMBUS news articles (April 2015 and July 2015), COLUMBUS is a €4m Blue Growth project designed to ensure that outputs arising from publicly-funded marine research projects have positive societal benefit. COLUMBUS will ensure measurable value creation, from EC investment into marine and maritime research, to contribute to sustainable Blue Growth within the timeframe of the project. To do this, COLUMBUS has established a “Knowledge Fellowship”, a network of nine full-time Knowledge Fellows whose role will be to carry out Knowledge Transfer. Working together as a team and active network, this combined critical mass will provide a multiplier effect to help achieve measurable impacts and to develop a blueprint for future activities in this field of work, ultimately contributing to the development of a thriving and sustainable “blue” economy. These Knowledge Fellows will work across nine nodes, each with a specific focus area: aquaculture, marine biological resources, marine environment and futures, fisheries, marine governance and management, marine transport and logistics, monitoring and observation, marine physical resources, and marine tourism.

On 6-7 October 2015, COLUMBUS’ Knowledge Fellows along with relevant partners, came together in Co. Meath, Ireland to begin their intensive training in Knowledge Transfer. The two-day training course was provided by AquaTT, the Strategic and Operational Leader of the project. AquaTT designed and wrote COLUMBUS based on their past experiences and insights into Knowledge Transfer. COLUMBUS is built on the significant efforts of past initiatives, where AquaTT was a common partner, which were focused on increasing the potential impact of EU-funded research. The enveloping theme recognising the need to move away from traditional communication activities that are developed for a project as a whole, and instead focusing on specific “Knowledge Outputs” generated by the project and the Target Users who need to be informed of them.

The Knowledge Fellows completed activity-based sessions, with progressive learning and understanding as the course objective. These exercises allowed each participant to realise the value in investing time and effort into developing a strategic and successful user-focused Knowledge Transfer Plan. Each Knowledge Fellow is now tasked with the significant mission of collecting Knowledge Outputs from past and current EU-funded marine projects. By doing so, high potential solutions might be identified and applied that could overcome major challenges and help progress the marine and maritime sectors in Europe.

COLUMBUS expects to see its impact come from the consequences of improved knowledge uptake by the different marine and maritime stakeholders. Acceptance and use of knowledge in industry, policy, society and science depends on the awareness, perception and understanding these stakeholders have of that knowledge. To bridge this gap by developing robust and sustainable Knowledge Transfer systems, which can be easily adapted and used, is a key objective of the COLUMBUS project.

On 21-22 April 2015, over 40 participants representing 26 organisations and 13 countries converged in Dublin, Ireland for the kick-off meeting of the COLUMBUS project. A "Coordination and Support Action", COLUMBUS represents the most substantial investment by the European Commission (EC) in Knowledge Transfer to date. The EC has provided €4m funding for the Blue Growth project designed to ensure that outputs arising from publicly-funded marine research projects have positive societal benefit. 

The two-day meeting included presentations and working activities which allowed the partners to better understand the significant objectives of the project which, if reached, will provide the opportunity to achieve fantastic results. This will require cooperation and collaboration amongst all of its partners, with the kick-off meeting being the first step in developing these relationships and understanding how best to work together. The overall meeting was a success with the partnership ready and willing to begin work immediately, particularly in setting the foundations for strong and robust methodologies and processes to be used within the project.

The COLUMBUS overarching objective is to ensure that applicable knowledge generated through EC-funded science and technology research can be transferred effectively to advance the governance of the marine and maritime sectors while improving competitiveness of European companies and unlocking the potential of the oceans to create future jobs and economic growth in Europe (Blue Growth).

To do this, the COLUMBUS project will set up a “Knowledge Fellowship”, a network of nine full-time Knowledge Transfer fellows whose role will be to carry out Knowledge Transfer through a step-wise methodology and based on the needs prioritised early in the project. These Knowledge Fellows will build capacity in Knowledge Transfer through internal training but will also share experiences and insights with each other, so the methodology used can be adapted and refined. The end result will be case studies of successful Knowledge Transfer proving the concept has real merit and impact.

Working together as a team and active network, this combined critical mass will provide a multiplier effect to help achieve the impacts defined in the call topic and to become a blueprint for future activities in this field of work, ultimately contributing to the development of a thriving and sustainable marine and maritime economy

The COLUMBUS project was designed and written by AquaTT, a Dublin-based SME, and is coordinated by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM). To achieve the above ambitious objectives, COLUMBUS has carefully constructed a multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary partnership comprising strategic marine and maritime organisations with past experience, relevant mandates and extended networks.

On 8-9 July 2015, over 30 participants were involved in the second COLUMBUS partner meeting, held in Berlin, Germany. The Coordination and Support Action kicked off in March 2015 and has since been working hard to put a strong and robust work plan in place to ensure success. The COLUMBUS overarching objective is to ensure that applicable knowledge generated through EC-funded science and technology research can be transferred effectively to advance the governance of the marine and maritime sectors while improving competitiveness of European companies and unlocking the potential of the oceans to create future jobs and economic growth in Europe (Blue Growth).

COLUMBUS has established a “Knowledge Fellowship”, a network of nine full-time Knowledge Transfer Fellows whose role will be to carry out Knowledge Transfer. These Knowledge Fellows will work across nine Competence Nodes, each with a specific focus area: Aquaculture; Fisheries; Monitoring and Observation; Marine Biological Resources; Maritime Transport and Logistics; Marine Physical Resources; Maritime Tourism; Marine Governance and Management; and, Marine Environment and Futures. To provide a focus, based on real-time requirements and priorities from the marine and maritime sectors in Europe, the COLUMBUS project was designed to first identify "knowledge needs" and then carry out Knowledge Transfer of suitable results from EU-funded projects.

The COLUMBUS meeting was devised to facilitate this identification of these knowledge needs through its dedicated Work Package, WP3 "Knowledge Demand". The overall aim of WP3 is to identify the main challenges, bottlenecks and knowledge gaps within the relevant marine and maritime areas. To do this the key European strategies on a general level and those with a thematic focus (e.g. aquaculture, fisheries, maritime transport) were reviewed. These were presented by the Knowledge Fellows in Berlin during working sessions which allowed partners to highlight missing elements and other considerations that would be important to note.

The meeting was highly successful, with partners providing significant experience and insights which will enrich and inform the next steps of the project, that is primarily to prioritise the Knowledge Transfer activities which will begin in the autumn. For this process to be most effective, COLUMBUS will provide internal capacity training for each of the Knowledge Fellows in the tangible Knowledge Transfer methodology, developed in previous EU-funded projects and adapted within COLUMBUS.

The COLUMBUS project was designed and written by AquaTT, a Dublin-based SME, and is coordinated by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM). To achieve the above ambitious objectives, COLUMBUS has carefully constructed a multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary partnership comprising strategic marine and maritime organisations with past experience, relevant mandates and extended networks.