Lessons Learned per Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Milestone 1

• Realize a complete inventory of local skills needed for the topic of academic actors, start-ups or companies already established in the region;
• Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can help to overcome the current marine and societal challenges and unlock the potential for Blue Growth;
• There is a strong need for redefining and refocusing the business model of tourism.

Milestone 2

• Promote the involvement of public authorities on local, national and European levels;
• Raise citizen and business awareness about the environmental protection and sustainability;
• Motivate to receive ahead of the workshop and on time the participants' action ideas and to attract participants from all stakeholders’ groups;
• Be aware that policy-makers are not easy to engage unless they see a specific benefit that fits their agenda;
• Start planning at least 4 months in advance the organisation of a workshop as it is very time consuming task;
• Carefully consider the workshop's duration as many participants think that a one day-long workshop is too long.

Milestone 3

• Assign participants to a specific table according to gender, type of organization/institution, type of expertise in the field, main interest in general to ensure multidisciplinarity;
• Multiply events where researchers from academia and industry exchange with a broader community to enhance this community and its visibility;
• Foster collaboration among companies in the marine biotechnologies value chain and social and environmental actors;
• Workshops may participants convince about RRI, but doesn't tend to help them in the concrete application of RRI in their daily work;
• The education of young people and the use of exchange programs between schools will lead to active citizenship respectful of the environment;
• All relevant stakeholders need to be involved in the process of developing sustainable tourism ventures within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs);
• Raise awareness among pupils and students about environmental protection through informational programs as well as promote the specific sector as a means of employability;
• Learn about participatory methods and how to use them;
• Help the participants with examples to understand how to embed RRI principles when discussing a sector and societal challenges.

Milestone 4

• Take measures to develop and further enhance the engagement and cooperation between different stakeholders;
• Focus on the concept and its tools when explaining RRI to participants;
• The absence of gender equality reveals a critical gap in access to opportunities and resources and decision-making power for women and men.

Milestone 5

• Foster stakeholder engagement, capacity building, behavioural changes and production and consumption pattern shift with Science education;
• Consider ethics when dealing with the legal frameworks to assure marine biotechnologies sustainability and social awareness;
• Open access, i.e. giving free online access to the results of publicly-funded research data will boost innovation and increase the use of scientific results by all societal actors.

Milestone 6

• Create training programs targeting SMEs and investors by focusing on enablers and barriers;
• Exchange with star chefs on new products from the transformation of marine resources to provide the opportunity to make the audience aware a wider audience;
• Make restaurants aware restaurants and the public about the potential offered by the blue biotechnologies;
• Raise awareness on aquaculture in the Azores;
• Organize of a marine biotechnology day at the regional level including different actors to make the general public aware on the marine biotechnology sector and its potential;
• Encourage scientists and NGO's to popularize the different aspects of marine biotechnology through science café, forums, open days etc;
• Promote researchers qualifications to find new bio applications for products answering societal needs;
• Develop new model of governance for marine biotechnology development including the engagement of the society;
• Educate the public at large in their individual role in marine conservation and sustainability (Public Engagement, Science Education);
• Educate all stakeholders about sustainable tourism sustainability to achieve socially and environmentally acceptable goods and services;
• Changing customer demand requires attractive and sustainable products that provide unique and customised experiences;
• Science & Education and Open Access have a vital role in achieving success in the development of sustainable tourism ventures within Marine Protected Areas;
• Each initiative on sustainable tourism products requires the right expertise (knowledge and skills) and institutional participatory processes that will support stakeholders' successful involvement;
• Use citizen observatories through mobile phones to report pollution sites and inappropriate environmental behaviour.

Milestone 7

• Use Open access to boost innovation and increase the use of scientific results by all societal actors as well as to develop public trust and engagement;
• Consider the distinction between the actions of making information available and the actions of making the information understandable by its potential users when dealing with Open Access;
• The ultimate aim should be to develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts and to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products;
• Develop new collaborations for new means of communication;
• Involving customers ranked the most favourable cluster with specific actions including the adoption of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) business model.

Milestone 8

• Create funding mechanisms to promote RRI in research and innovation in the innovative sectors;
• Involve "Ambassadors" or " figures" at regional level (navigators, high level sportsman, known well-respected public figures of all kinds);
• Promote education, training and more equal incomes for fishermen in the Azores;
• Consider opportunities of synergies between the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the Azores;
• Beware that the high level of qualification needed in aquaculture and the small scale of the region market are two constraints of the synergies between the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the Azores;
• Create of a one-stop shop for the Institute of blue bio-technologies with short and long-term strategies;
• Create an award for the best blue bio-technologies innovation or product to make maritime biotechnologies a sustainable economic opportunity;
• Promote the reinforcement of policies and adoption of coherent legislative frameworks to develop marine biotechnology;
• Coordinate and develop industrial, academic and political linkages to boost funding around marine biotechnologies;
• Protect the deep sea from mining, create laws that impose that deep sea mining is a non-profit activity and concert the deep sea into world heritage site;
• Promote governance arrangements and practices to favour sustainable tourism and seafood consumption;
• Reliable scientific information is not easily accessible for sectorial actors;
• Create a seafood producers organisation in France to reduce the gap between the producers and consumers;
• Focus on Science Education in sustainable development and marine resources management as a critical part of local culture and coastal tourism;
• To develop a sector, develop a legal framework promoting and regulating its development;
• Education is necessary for the marine biotechnology development thus the need for developing university educational programmes on marine biotechnology;
• Provide scientific education in all the scholar cycles: it is crucial;
• Improve regulations and legislations about the release of bacteria at sea.

See also...

Societal Challenge