The BlueBRIDGE H2020 project convened a one-day workshop on 11 January 2017 in Brussels entitled “Understanding how ecosystems of e-infrastructures can support Blue Growth”. The aim of the event was to showcase how the Blue Growth sector is benefitting from services that the BlueBRIDGE project has to offer. The latter primarily regard the combination of existing e-infrastructure services with an easy to use interface. The workshop also provided the opportunity to further discuss opportunities related to data management with e-Infrastructures.
The rapid developments of on-line data services and exponential growth of data quantity require collaborative and computing intensive solutions that can only be available through e-Infrastructures. A characteristic of e-Infrastructures is the re-use of existing solutions. Re-use of existing services is an effective way to save time and money. This is the approach adopted by the BlueBRIDGE project and the thread of the presentations of the event. BlueBRIDGE delivers specialised data services for aquaculture farm management, the ecosystem approach to fisheries, spatial data analysis, and marine spatial planning. These services are operated through Virtual Research Environments built on top of a hybrid-data infrastructure. This hybrid-data infrastructure is capable of dynamically federating computing and storage resources coming from third party providers, datasets belonging to heterogeneous data sources, analytical tools developed by different organisations, and to offer all of these services in a unique collaborative environment.
Several users have already adopted BlueBRIDGE services to solve their data management issues.
Panel session at the BlueBRIDGE workshop.
The workshop [L1] brought together stakeholders operating in the Blue Growth sector, all with data management challenges needing integrated solutions. Blue Growth is the long term strategy of the European Commission Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors. The stakeholders ranged from international fisheries organisations, to organisations providing scientific advice and recommendations to policy makers and governments on marine protected areas and fish stocks, to private enterprises providing support to aquafarms in evaluating their economic performance, or in detecting areas to locate cages, to academics and scientists supporting international fisheries commissions in analysing marine species or performing environmental, societal and nutritional research. Representatives from the European Commission were also present. The full list of participants is available at [L2].
The Workshop discussion focused on three main themes:
- How data-driven science is shaping Blue Growth practices: Practical Insights from BlueBRIDGE Users
- How European e-infrastructures can support Blue Growth related data science and innovation
- How the Blue Growth sector can benefit from the European Open Science Cloud
Agenda and workshop presentations are available at [L1].
The main findings of the report have been published a report, which is structured as follows:
- Section 1 presents the BlueBRIDGE offer and approach.
- Section 2 describes how users from the Blue Growth sector are benefitting from the adoption of the BlueBRIDGE services.
- Section 3 presents the main findings of the final panel discussion focusing on the role that data-driven science and innovation plays in the Blue Growth sector, on how European e-infrastructures concretely facilitate this role and on how the Blue Growth sector will benefit from the European Open Science Cloud. The report is available for download at [L3].
The BlueBridge project is coordinated by ISTI-CNR, ERCIM EEIG provides administrative and financial support.
[L1] http://www.bluebridge-vres.eu/agenda-bluebridge-workshop-11-january-2017-brussels-belgium
[L2] http://bluebridge-vres.eu/participants
[L3] http://www.bluebridge-vres.eu/sites/default/files/januaryworkshopreport.pdf
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