The coordinator established a management structure for the overall legal, contractual, financial and administrative issues as well as for the communication between MarTERA partners and the EC, which is in agreement with all partners. An efficient working environment for the preparation, implementation and monitoring of the MarTERA calls was created by extensive communications between the coordinator and all partners. The organisational structure provides a simple and efficient decision-making process and coordination of all efforts within the consortium (fig.1). Main bodies of an efficient project management structure consist of a Steering Committee (SC), the Project Coordinator (CO) and the Executive Team (ET). Main Goal of MarTERA during the first period was the organisation and implementation of the first co-funded call. For that, the call announcement and supporting documents in line with the objectives of the national programmes were prepared and finalised according to the ERA-NET Cofund rules. The coordinator established an adequate online submission system (electronic tool and forms), according to the agreed procedures of the co-funded call. One of the key objectives of MarTERA is to establish a framework for networking between project partners to seek complementarities and enhance exchange of knowledge and ideas. It was hence decided to organize brokerage events in the intermediate period between the launch of the calls and the deadline for submission of proposals.
For the communication and dissemination of MarTERA a website has been developed and leaflets for the dissemination activities were printed out and taken to different workshops, conferences, seminars. Press releases were published in magazines and disseminated via newsletters of the National Contact Points and ERA-LEARN platform.
The MarTERA consortium decided to prepare and launch 1 cofunded and 3 additional non-cofunded calls. 19 R&I projects were implemented in the co-funded call, involving 95 R&I partners. In total, 48 R&I projects were funded, including the additional calls, gathering 255 R&I partners, with 50% coming from the private sector.
The research effort in MarTERA’s projects has led to the development of a large diversity of new methods, models, protocols, services or products which can find applications in very diverse marine activities, including aquaculture, ship navigation, seabed monitoring, among others. Most of these achievements can be applied to various marine and maritime activities.
The involvement of companies has been large, e.g. by co-designed the R&I proposals and actively contributed to the research effort. A great effort has also been made by the consortia to connect to new stakeholders and end-users during the projects, and to ensure that the projects kept focus on market suitability. All these achievements have contributed to address the global objectives of MarTERA to increase the resource efficiency, security, safety and environmental compliance of marine and maritime activities. It paves the way toward sustainable activities in the European sea areas.
The results have been widely disseminated in the scientific community via publication of articles, participation to conferences, and valorization in patents and licenses. MarTERA has also contributed to strengthen the European R&I networks on marine and maritime topics via the organization of mingling activities in regular meetings to help people to connect and to share good practice in the development of their projects.
