Converting marine research into products and services
The European Commission's Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes (FP6 and FP7) have provided funding to more than 1000 marine research projects, worth in excess of €2 billion. It is important that the knowledge generated by these projects is now transferred to targeted end-users in order to ensure uptake and application of this knowledge to the benefit of society. Through the European marine research knowledge transfer and uptake of results (MarineTT) project, the EU aimed to stimulate cooperation between science and business by removing obstacles and providing incentives. To this end, the project identified relevant research projects and uptake barriers, and also analysed the potential impact of uptake. A lack of understanding of what knowledge transfer involves and how to achieve it prompted the MarineTT team to produce a knowledge transfer methodology. This methodology involves identifying and compiling usable knowledge from past and current European Commission research projects in a standard format and assessing them for potential. A tailor-made approach to transfer is then taken based on the type of knowledge and the target users. MarineTT also improved access to this knowledge for industry, civil society and policy makers by making it available in an online repository called the Marine Knowledge Gate. The MarineTT project is likely to serve as a model for future strategies that aim to ensure measurable value creation from EU-funded research. This value can be measured in terms of income generation, policy changes, scientific advancement and increased public understanding of science.
