The overall goal of the MarTERA Cofund is to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in maritime and marine technologies and support Blue Growth. The consortium launched its first co-funded call in December 2016 with a total budget of €30 million, of which participating countries—Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, and Turkey—contributed €20 million, while the European Commission provided an additional €10 million. The MarTERA Call 2017 was implemented as a two-step procedure consisting of a pre-proposal stage followed by a full-proposal stage. In addition to the co-funded call, further joint activities were planned to contribute both to national priorities and to the strategic research agendas of JPI Oceans and WATERBORNE.
JPI Oceans and MarTERA also collaborated to organise a brokerage event on maritime and marine technologies, providing participants with opportunities to network and identify potential partners for collaborative applications. The main objective of MarTERA was to address several key challenges in the marine and maritime sectors:
• National and European research activities in marine and maritime sectors are often poorly coordinated. Greater synergies and progress towards common goals require improved coordination and harmonisation of funding priorities and research agendas.
• Collaborative projects funded by the European Commission are often large and complex, which can limit participation, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). At the same time, national funding schemes frequently provide limited opportunities for collaboration with foreign partners, especially where cross-border funding mechanisms are unavailable.
• Participation in transnational projects enables countries to combine their respective funding resources and expertise to address complex challenges that cannot be solved by a single nation acting alone.
• Transnational cooperation increases opportunities for innovation to enter and compete in new markets.
• A cross-sectoral approach to technology development can generate innovations with applications across multiple sectors, thereby increasing the overall impact of funded projects.
• Bringing together industry and research actors across national borders strengthens Europe’s economic position and supports the objectives of Blue Growth.
• Transnational cooperation makes it possible to create critical mass, concentrate excellence on pre-competitive technological breakthroughs, and enhance the long-term competitiveness of marine and maritime industries, helping to maintain Europe’s competitive advantage.
• Collaboration at the transnational level also helps create the critical mass needed to address technological challenges in maritime operations.