Sustainable Development of Marine Areas and Coastal Regions
The EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy seeks to provide a more coherent approach to maritime issues. It aims to ensure sustainable development marine areas and coastal regions. Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is an important tool to work across borders and sectors with different, and often conflicting, interests. It is supported by EU's Blue Growth - a long-term strategy for supporting sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors. Ecosystem-based management, cross-border co-operation and stakeholder involvement are among the central principles of Integrated Maritime Policy.
We produce information to support the processes of maritime spatial planning and blue growth. We participate in and run research and development projects in national and Baltic Sea Region context.
Projects
The BLUE-C is an international project funded from the Erasmus+ Programme. It aims at enhancing sustainability and competitiveness of the blue economy by promoting collaboration and connecting coastal communities, growing digital competences, and sharing best practices on coastal and maritime tourism. The abbreviation stands for Collaborating Coastal Communities – Encouraging Blue Growth through Co-creation, Co-design and Co-work.
The project focuses on micro enterprises embedded across coastal communities. Very often these are small local businesses that may be too busy or too distanced from opportunities of collaboration and knowledge exchange. Parallel to this, entrepreneurs may lack the digital skills needed to connect, target, and grow their small businesses and customer bases. The BLUE-C will animate and facilitate co-working, co-design and co-creation opportunities for micro enterprises involved in the blue economy and water-related tourism sector.
Project's duration is 24 months, 1 Jan 2022–31 Dec 2023. The total budget is 240 000 €.
Project partners:
- Inishowen Development Partnership, Ireland
- Eurodimensions, Malta
- Eolas S.L., Spain
- Stichting Business Development Friesland, The Netherlands
- Aintek Symvouloi Epicheiriseon Efarmoges Ypsilis Technologias Ekpaidefsi Anonymi Etaireia, Greece
- Centre for Maritime Studies, University of Turku, Finland
More information: Kirsi Laitio, kirsi.laitio(@)utu.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 7799 483 & Sari Nyroos, sari.nyroos(@)utu.fi, tel. +358 (0)40 7799 493
GET READY (Getting Ready for the Cross-Border Challenges: Capacity Building in Sustainable Shore Use) aims at increasing the readiness of the cross-border region to the existing and expected challenges by introducing examples of best practices on both sides of the border and applying innovative solutions in the field of sustainable shore use and coastal zone management in the Eastern Gulf of Finland.
The project is financed by the South-East Finland – Russia CBC 2014-2020 programme, which is one of the three programmes implemented at the border regions between Finland and Russia under the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI).
Cooperation is done with Russian and Finnish academic, scientific and business partners. The project is coordinated and managed by Eco Express Service and other Russian partners are the Russian State Hydrological Institute and the St. Petersburg State University. These partners provide a good starting point for cross-border cooperation. The Finnish partners in the project are South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (XAMK), Kotka Maritime Research Centre (Merikotka ry), the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) and the University of Turku, Centre for Maritime Studies (CMS). These partners support the project’s objectives towards the most sustainable ports and shipping through their work packages.
Project duration: 05/2019 - 04/2022
Contact: Sari Nyroos, Education Manager, tel. +358 40 779 9493
For more information, visit the website of GET READY.
Plan4Blue -hanke tukee kestävää sinistä kasvua, jossa taloudelliset, sosiaaliset ja ympäristön tavoitteeet ovat tasapainossa. Hankealueena on Suomenlahti ja Saaristomeri. Plan4Blue toteutetaan yhteistyössä suomalaisten ja virolaisten toimijoiden kanssa, ja tavoitteena on tukea rajat ylittävää yhteistyötä. Hanke tukee merten aluesuunnittelua (Maritime Spatial Planning, MSP) kehittämällä metodeja ja osaamista. Plan4Blue-hankkeessa tuodaan yhteen sinisen kasvun ja merten aluesuunnittelun toimijat, ja identifioidaan polkuja merialueitten ja resurssien kestävään käyttöön.
Hanke laatii vaihtoehtoiset tulevaisuuden skenaariot yhdessä virolaisten ja suomalaisten sinisen talouden sektoreiden edustajien kanssa, kuten viranomaiset, järjestöt ja yritykset. Skenaariot koskevat meriklusteria, merellistä matkailua, energian tuotantoa ja siirtoa sekä sinistä biotaloutta ja merenpohjan resursseja.
Hankkeen loppuvaiheessa tarkastelemme yhdessä merialuesuunnittelusta ja merten suojelusta vastaavien viranomaisten ja muiden keskeisten toimijoiden kanssa sitä, miten tulevaisuuden tilannekuvat ja niiden vaikutukset tulisi ottaa huomioon merialuesuunnittelussa. Lisäksi hanke edistää rajat ylittävää yhteistyötä merialuesuunnittelun toimijoiden kesken.
Hankkeen kokonaisbudjetti on noin 2 miljoonaa euroa, ja Turun yliopiston budjetti on yhteensä 489 799 euroa. Hanke toteutetaan ajalla 1.10.2016-30.9.2019.
Hankepartnerit
- Suomen ympäristökeskus SYKE (koordinaattori)
- Tarton yliopisto
- Uudenmaan liitto
- Varsinais-Suomen liitto
- Baltic Environmental Forum Estonia
- Turun yliopisto: Turun kauppakorkeakoulu, maantieteen ja geologian laitos, Brahea-keskuksen merenkulkualan koulutus- ja tutkimuskeskus.
- MKK:n vastuulla on koordinoida WP1:tä, Potential for Sustainable Blue Economies. MKK koordinoi myös Turun yliopiston osallistumista hankkeeseen.
Lisätietoja: Riitta Pöntynen
Lue lisää hankkeen sivulta
SmartSea – “Gulf of Bothnia as Resource for Sustainable Growth“, is part of the “Climate-Neutral and Resource-Scarce Finland”–program, funded by the Strategic Research Council of Academy of Finland. Provides science-based guidance and new innovations for the sustainable use of the Finland’s marine resources. In SmartSea, the integrated value of nature will be assessed and discussed with the different stakeholders. In the future, this helps planners to do decisions that are efficient, and accepted by the society.
Contact: Johanna Yliskylä-Peuralahti, Dr., Project Manager, tel. +358 40 154 5936
For more information, visit the website of SmartSea.
