Impact and our ambitions
The project pathways towards impact
Unique contribution MARBEFES makes towards the OUTCOMES and the WIDER IMPACTS
Overall objective: Our overall objective is to provide knowledge, tools and methodology to achieve the Cluster 6 impact 28: "Biodiversity is back on a path to recovery and ecosystems and their services are preserved and sustainably restored on land, inland water and at sea through improved knowledge and innovation" of the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan Key Strategic Orientation B “Restoring Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity, and managing sustainably natural resources to ensure food security and a clean and healthy environment”.
From science to administrators - we will have produced a handbook detailing methods for ecological and economic valuation of marine ecosystems (WP4) and worked out a cohesive integration and synthesis of current ecosystem scenarios, where human impacts merge with natural change dynamics. The MARBEFES ethos is illustrated in figure below.
Figure 5 Relationship between the MARBEFES concept, the needs, impacts and interactive dissemination and communication of knowledge and experiences.
From stakeholders to science – and back again: We engage and involve stakeholders at three basic levels. At the top, international/European level, we involve members of DG-Environment and DG-Clima. At the intermediate level we both consult and advise Coastal Zone Managers, Marine Spatial Planners and Member State representatives, across our study areas (BBTs). At a more local level, within the BBT study areas, we involve local authorities, industries using the marine environment, NGOs and the general public.
From science to policy and management and back again: We will engage with local level to regional and EU-level policy makers, and engage with additional policy focused initiatives and platforms in operation (e.g. HELCOM, OSPAR, ICES, WISE Marine, BISE, MAES). The policy makers and managers will be targeted for both receiving issues of concern and sharing our findings.
Science to and for society: Targeted outreach and dissemination activities in MARBEFES will express scientific results on the value of nature in general, and of biodiversity in particular in an easy-to-understand language to the wider public and civil society.
Our ambition
MARBEFES Consortium brings six innovative concepts, methods and products, which have been applied in certain areas but never combined and implemented at wider scales (see table below). The project combines achievements from many disciplines and domains (see next section), the outputs of which will break the current barriers between them. As a project of this scale, it bears also a degree of ambition which in turn propels MARBEFES to reach levels beyond the current state-of-the-art and produces innovation. In terms of R&I, MARBEFES is currently positioned at the TRL of 2- and it is expected that after its implementation this will level off at TRL 6 (see table below).
Table 1 MARBEFES Ambition and Innovation