The aim of WP4 is to develop an action plan to realize the real opportunities for multi-use in European Seas, including the scope for innovation and Blue Growth potential. The action plan will be developed actively with stakeholders. It will show the potentiality of ocean space, highlight where benefits can be realized, draw attention to barriers that can be overcome and provide recommendations on what actions are needed in order to enable this. The MUSES action plan – even though being one document – will be designed so as to show clear lines of responsibilities (by explicitly mentioning those responsible for an “action”), indicating possible time-frames for action delivery as well as funding needs and opportunities. The action plan will be fed into EU macro-regional and sea basin strategies (e.g. EUSBSR, EUSAIR), ongoing activities of Regional Seas Conventions, network roadmaps (e.g. SUBMARINER Roadmap), industry forums (e.g. Ocean Energy Forum) and national and EU maritime spatial planning policy processes.
The results from WP2 (Overview of MUs in European Sea Basins) and WP3 (Case Studies), will enable MUSES to create an Action Plan and develop recommendations for future development of Multi-Use (MU) in European Seas. SUBMARINER are the leading partner on this WP.
This WP addresses stakeholder engagement, in-depth analyses of outcomes from WP2 and WP3, sea basin syntheses of the barriers that need to be overcome to realise sea basin potential and an action plan providing recommendations and actions for developing MU in European Seas. The action plan will identify clear lines of responsibilities (by explicitly mentioning those responsible for an “action”), indicate possible time-frames for action delivery as well as funding needs and opportunities. The action plan will be fed into EU macro-regional and sea basin strategies (e.g. EUSBSR, EUSAIR), on-going activities of Regional Seas Conventions, network roadmaps (e.g. SUBMARINER Roadmap), industry forums (e.g. Ocean Energy Forum) and national and EU maritime spatial planning policy processes.
The action plan process will start at the beginning of the project and work in close cooperation with WP2 and WP3. Key outputs from these work packages will feed directly into all of the tasks in WP4. Three main tasks are envisaged, as follows:
- Task 4.1: Stakeholder Profiles
- Task 4.2: Analyses and Sea Basin Syntheses
- Task 4.3: Action Plan (currently ongoing)
Task 4.1 Stakeholder Profiles
The stakeholder arena in WP4 will be the same as those participating in WP2, therefore, we will work closely with stakeholder activities in WP2 (Overview of MU in European Sea Basins), following the entire stakeholder process. A comprehensive overview of relevant stakeholders taken from different sectors, with different roles in the MU process and from different geographic scales (national, sea basin and EU wide) covering all EU sea basins will be compiled. We will establish appropriate links with macro-regional and sea basin strategies and plans, stakeholder forums, roadmaps, as well as relevant policy processes such as the Maritime Spatial Planning and Marine Strategy Framework Directives such that important actions can already be identified as existing within or be recommended as additions to these plans and strategies.
There will be close ties between WP4 and WP5 (Dissemination, Communication and Stakeholder Engagement) to establish mechanisms for attracting stakeholder input into the action planning process, elaborate key stakeholder discussion issues and identify how to effectively feed the actions back into relevant marine spatial planning (MSP) policy processes. While it will be important to review local stakeholder feedback arising from individual case studies carried out in WP3, it will be essential to engage with macro-regional, sea basin and European level stakeholders and processes to ensure that issues identified in the action planning process are fed back into macro-regional, sea basin and EU MSP policy processes. Stakeholder profiles will be compiled and stakeholder views arising from WP2 and WP3 activities will be elaborated to establish further agendas for stakeholder interaction. We will target focus groups for each sea basin and steer a strong interaction among participants in all five basins’ key issues. New ideas and solutions to current problems can come out of this process.
The action plan will be the main deliverable of the MUSES project. Substantial effort will therefore be made to produce a well-designed, easy-to-read, comprehensive printed document, which shall be promoted extensively by all partners and stakeholders involved beyond the lifetime of the project itself.
Task 4.2 Overview of MU Analysis
This report has been developed under WP4 of the MUSES project. As part of crucial steps to the preparation of the MUSES Action Plan on Multi Uses, this report provides a clear overview of MU potential (including environmental, economic and societal benefits) in European sea basins. It also highlights major barriers (inappropriate regulations, operational, environmental, health and safety, societal and legal aspects) stalling the transition of MU of ocean from a concept to real life recognition and practical implementation.
The report builds on efforts undertaken under WP2 Sea Basin Comparison and WP3 Case Studies, as well as the first MUSES stakeholder workshop (Poole, 2017) International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) MUSES workshop (Edinburgh, 2018), MUSES North Sea workshop (Dundee, 2018). More precisely, it summarizes the results and outputs from a year analysis of MU in all five European Union sea basins: Eastern Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.