| Issue # 16 - February 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 A EUROPEAN COASTAL PLATFORM WILL FOLLOW UP ENCORA IN 2009The ENCORA follow-up was the hottest discussion topic at the annual meeting in Copenhagen on 5-7 February. The members of the Steering Committee and Advisory Board unanimously agreed that the networking structure established by ENCORA during the past two years has created a new dimension in European cooperation on coastal and marine issues. The disappearance of this structure after the end of the EU funded Coordination Action was considered inconceivable and an irresponsible waste. We should strive, on the contrary, for further strengthening European cohesion among the coastal and marine communities of science, policy and practice. EUCC and CoastNET came up with the idea to create a European Coastal Platform that will provide a cooperation structure for existing national and international networks. This idea immediately received broad support. The Platform welcomes not only networks already cooperating within ENCORA, but also other collaborations that aspire to continue in future. The LOICZ core office has already expressed its interest to cooperate. The Platform will develop and promote networking services that are largely self-sustaining, such as the Coastal Wiki and the Contact Database hosted by the Flanders Marine Institute VLIZ. Such networking services that are expanded and kept up to date by the users themselves, can be maintained at low costs. It was suggested that the Platform should be an association with a legal status; it then can derive part of its funding from participation in European projects. A modest membership fee is one of the other options that will be explored. Several members of the ENCORA Steering Committee and the Advisory Board have volunteered to jointly draft a discussion paper over the next months outlining several options for the establishment and functioning of the European Coastal Platform. We heartily welcome organisations not yet affiliated to ENCORA to join this effort. Please email your interest!  National news in this issue
 International news is in this issue
  COASTAL WIKI RECEIVES BROAD SUPPORTAt the same annual ENCORA meeting the Steering Committee and the Advisory Board discussed the evaluation of the Coastal Wiki and the recommendations of Stephen Olsen and co-workers of the Coastal Resource Center of Rhode Island University (US). A proposal will be submitted to the 2nd call of the 7th EU Framework Programme in response to several concerns expressed in the evaluation, such as greater involvement of professional coastal stakeholders and outreach to the public (in particular through multilingual versions of the Coastal Wiki). The theme coordinators have agreed to intensify the review of theme-related contributions and Deltares will appoint a part-time content manager. It was the unanimous opinion of the Advisory Board that the Coastal Wiki is becoming a major tool for translating and disseminating knowledge from science to practice/policy and for knowledge sharing. The LOICZ coordinator, Hartwig Kremer, will advocate the use of the Coastal Wiki by all the projects affiliated to LOICZ. Major EU projects represented in the Advisory Board, MARBEF, SPICOSA and CONSCIENCE, have also expressed the intention to disseminate results through the Coastal Wiki. At an informal meeting with EU officers on 22 January, the ENCORA coordinator proposed to make the Coastal Wiki available to all coastal and marine-related projects funded by the Framework Programme. The EU officers supported this idea and will discuss with the Programme Committee a proposal to encourage the use of the Coastal Wiki for the dissemination of EU project results.  THE COASTAL PORTAL: AN INCREASINGLY POPULAR WEBSITEDuring the past year the daily number of portal visitors has increased by factor 4. On an average day some 200 colleagues are visiting the portal. About half of them go directly to the Coastal Wiki, which is by far the portal functionality attracting most users. On the new portal home page you can directly launch a Coastal Wiki search order! The second popular functionality is the Contact Database, where you can find the contact details of some 2000 colleagues throughout Europe, information on some 400 projects and links to some 800 institute websites. Some useful functionalities are less visited. Apparently they have not yet been discovered by many portal visitors, perhaps because the explanation on the portal is not clear enough. This is the case in particular for two search functionalities that complement the Coastal Wiki. One is the websearch facility, which enables a Google-type search through a selected set of highly relevant coastal websites. It is possible to search in a subset of websites belonging to a certain category or you can make up your own subset. Please let us know if you are aware of important websites presently missing in our selection! Another is the Coastweb Archive, which contains a wealth of documents and which can be searched using an advanced ontology-based search system. If you want to disseminate important documents you should upload them in the Coastweb library! The Coastal Portal has also a forum facility that you may use for discussions with colleagues. The forum has a protected area for project partners, where 2-3 messages are posted each day. There are also forums where you can login if you are registered in the Contact Database. Under the national and thematic forum headings you may enter your own forum topic. The ENCORA Portal has recently been restyled and improved following the recommendations of a user enquiry. We want to continue improving the services delivered through the portal. Do you miss certain services? Should some services be improved? Please let us know by posting a message! ECHOES FROM YPEPRobert Ellis from the University of Plymouth received a grant from the Young Professionals Exchange Programme (YPEP) to undertake an industrial work placement at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany. He wrote: " ... Whilst at the AWI I was fortunate to be introduced to a group of leading scientists, all of who are at the forefront of their respective fields. This allowed me to gain an unrivalled insight into current scientific opinion over a number of differing specialties and crucially, propose future collaborations. One of the researchers leading the group at the AWI proposed a future trip and collaborative work based on cephalopod research between the AWI and the University of Plymouth. All of these opportunities wouldn’t have been possible without ENCORA funding and its drive to develop European scientific networks and collaborations." Noor Saeed from the University of Leicester attended Coast GIS conference in Santander, October, 2007: ".... Excellent papers were presented and new technologies ( Google earth, mapping etc) were discussed and elaborated. It was really a great way of networking and very nice to meet the GIS experts from all over the world. And today I have received 14 emails replies from the attendees ( 5 of them are from the main committees) of this conference. Excellent way of networking..." Serena Ferri, PhD student of the University of Florence, was one of the participants of the CoastLab Teaching Autumn School in Porto, November 2007: “The CoastLab represented for me a precious opportunity to face some new topics related to coastal engineering that till now, due to my geologist background, were far away from my common field of research. A scientific and human dialogue with colleagues coming from different countries and different fields has taught me how to think more widely about a single problem and led me to new solutions. Course organization, and most of travel arrangement have been simple and impeccable thanks to ENCORA’s contacts and support. Within the scope of international collaborations, and also for own professional perspectives, I hope that initiatives promoted by YPEP-ENCORA will continue to be an important instrument for all the students who want to grow up in an high level scientific context." Victor Lander and Dogan Kiscacik from Gent University also attended the Coastlab Teaching Autumn School. They reported: " ... The topics were relevant for my doctoral research and the level of the course was good. The networking with young people doing similar things as you do, was very good." and " ...The hands-on application-oriented training course provided me with the knowledge necessary to apply physical modelling to a wide range of port and coastal protection applications. The course covered a wide range of issues from wave generation to wave-structure interactions.The traveling support for the young professional of BeNCoRe is quite meaningful. I believe this will provide young professionals to be more active in the field of research...". Andreas Rummel, PhD student working at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering of the University of Genova, was selected as an “invited expert” to the ENCORA Paris meeting. He wrote: "..... Based on the European Action Plan, which will hopefully be included in the roadmap and in future calls of the EC, I would like to participate in a transnational EU-project on ICZM to strengthen the European Research Area. ENCORA is a good basis to find potential partners for an application to the call for proposals by the EC. In this way a strong collaboration among ENCORA members from different disciplines in coastal research will be maintained. I will definitely support the ENCORA network by attending future events and sharing my knowledge with colleagues working in coastal research and policy for an integrated management of the nearshore and coastal zone." | | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National news is in this issue
DANCORE efter ENCORA DANCORE var vært for ENCORA's årmøde, der blev afholdt i København den 6.-8. februar med deltagelse af vores 14 søsternetværk fra Europa. Mødet fandt sted i Geocentret, og som Job Dronkers skriver andetsteds i sin editorial, så var mødets vigtigste punkt "livet efter ENCORA". Beslutningen om at følge op med en europæisk kystplatform blev vel modtaget også fra dansk side. For vores eget DANCORE er det dog ligeså væsentligt at finde en måde at videreføre det kystnetværk, vi nationalt har fået etableret i de forløbne to år. I den forbindelse har der været afholdt indledende forhandlinger med den europæiske organisation EUCC, der er repræsenteret i flere EU-lande, men endnu ikke i Norden, selvom der er enkelte danske medlemmer. En nærmere diskussion af DANCORE's fremtid vil derfor være det vigtigste punkt på det næste møde i DANCORE's styregruppe, der vil finde sted i løbet af april. IMBER Town Hall Meeting during ASLO Meeting (Orlando, FL, 2-7 March 2008) Status and Opportunities of the IMBER Project 3 March 2008, Orlando, FL, USA Read more Workshop on Economic Assessment of National Consequences Implementing Common Marine Policies 10-11 March 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark Deadline for registration: 27 February 2008 Read more Water Management Issues in Coastal AreasSeminar for young professionals 31 March - 4 April 2008, Marennes-Oléron, France Read more 2nd CoastLab Course 9-11 April 2008, Porto, Portugal Deadline for registration: 2 March 2008 Read more Workshop on the Offshore Wind Farms of the Future and the Marine Animal LifeOrganised by the Danish Society for Marine Biology in cooperation with DONG Energy Power 8 May 2008, Copenhagen, Denmark Read more IMBER IMBIZO - Biochemical and Ecosystem Interactions in a changing Ocean 9-13 November 2008, Miami, USA Read more 6th International Conference on Asian Marine Geology 29 August - 1 September 2008, Kochi, Japan Deadline for abstracts: 10 April 2008 Read more Research Position to carry out Research Activities relative to the Numerical Modelling and Forecasting of the Marine Ecosystem for the Adriatic SeaCentro Interdipartimentale di Ricerca per le Scienze Ambientali di Ravenna, taly Deadline for applications: 1 March 2008 Read more / Notice of selection Principal Investigator - Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAF) Marine Institute, Oranmore, Co Galway, Ireland Deadline for applications: 14 March 2008 Read more
|  Colophon The ENCORA objective is to facilitate and create new opportunities for sharing knowledge and experience on coastal issues in Europe. This electronic newsletter will inform you frequently about the activities and achievements of the network. Every issue will contain a section with news about your national network or ICZM related topics in your country. This electronic newsletter may be forwarded freely to others working in the ICZM fiels. If you would like to receive the ENCORA Newsletter directly, please contact your national coordinator or subscribe to www.encora.org. News-items for publication can be send to encore@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
