Lessons Learned from Portugal MML workshops

Milestone 1

• Bring researchers from ‘non-conventional’ areas related to Deep Sea Mining.

Milestone 2

• Promote the involvement of public authorities on local, national and European levels;
• Improve science literacy and research applicability to increase awareness on the specific issue;
• Invite additional stakeholders and communities to join the MARINA knowledge sharing platform and direct them to the results and materials related to Deep Sea Mining;
• Identify motives for policy makers and implementers to participate in the workshops as they are reluctant in participating.

Milestone 3

• Create a relaxing but effective work experience and joint decision-making with the world café methodology;
• Adopt participative methods tested in MARINA in other initiatives including stakeholders;
• Foster collaboration among companies in the marine biotechnologies value chain and social and environmental actors;
• Invite stakeholders to provide their feedback about workshop;
• Implement RRI in real situations, with many participants proposing many actions;
• Choose a suitable method for the number of participants and the specific of the workshop.

Milestone 4

• Develop partnerships for science outreach actions;
• Find moderators with experience on methods used for event moderation;
• Stakeholders are concerned that the authorities and the private companies will decide to advance with Deep Sea Mining without proper public consultation and without knowing sufficient about the deep sea;
• The society believes that RRI will never be in full effect without strong political will.

Milestone 5

• Foster stakeholder engagement, capacity building, behavioural changes and production and consumption pattern shift with Science education;
• Create decision-making processes that are participative, transparent and allow for public deliberation;
• Have business and industry professionals consider producing socially and environmentally acceptable marine bio-based goods and services;
• Consider ethics when dealing with the legal frameworks to assure marine biotechnologies sustainability and social awareness;
• Include key local stakeholders in the planning and implementation of local strategies;
• Include more education aspects of citizenship, sustainability and ecology in schools;
• Organize more science dissemination events targeting the general public;
• Promote citizen science to involve the general public on research;
• Develop more partnerships with the Media and NGOs in order to reach bigger audiences;
• Develop and organize more actions, in order that different stakeholders meet and discuss their ideas more often and get used to think outside their boxes;
• Increase knowledge on deep sea minerals occurrences and their economic;
• Work together (science, law, economics, policy) to give advice on seabed mining issues;
• Increase awareness in the use of raw materials and their importance on our society;
• Create an organized knowledge synthesis on Deep Sea Mining;
• Identify what are the society's perceptions and knowledge gaps for consideration in future planning of Deep Sea Mining research and innovation initiatives;
• Improve efficient communication, generate plural debates and disseminate reliable data and information to convert vision into reality.

Milestone 6

• Follow up with the participants with periodic workshops using the same methodology;
• Raise awareness on aquaculture in the Azores;
• Promote researchers qualifications to find new bio applications for products answering societal needs;
• Adapt local policies and strategies in order to be in agreement with research outcomes;
• Plan local actions in agreement with its local circumstances instead of promoting larger-scale policies;
• Support local and international decision-makers in charge of evaluating if, when, how, by who and for what should Deep Sea Mining ever take place;
• Create an open access platform with all Deep Sea Mining data available including biological and geological information;
• Educate children on the importance of biodiversity and how to think about the environment responsibly;
• Promote public engagement actions to raise awareness to the urgency of deep sea mapping;
• Follow-up on motivated participants of how that used the knowledge obtained in workshops for third private and professional projects.

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;
• Analyse the impact of plumes and waste produced by Deep Sea Mining exploitation;
• Distinguish between occurrences and resources, in order to know what exists and its potential economic value.

Milestone 8

• Raise awareness among the general public to make informed choices and have an active social participation to further push the new initiatives;
• 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;
• Promote the reinforcement of policies and adoption of coherent legislative frameworks to develop marine biotechnology;
• Try to develop stronger engagement among schools and the local authorities for the maintenance of basic infrastructure;
• Make environmental impact assessment mandatory for Deep Sea Mining within the EU;
• Oblige companies by contract to use 10% of their investment in an investigation in engineering design for mitigation of Deep Sea Mining during all the operation;
• 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;
• Provide strong incentives to promote the circular economy;
• Disseminate information about opportunities, threats and risks on the studied topic.

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