The new strategic framework is meant to refresh the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda under which JPI Oceans is operating in the six-year period since 2015, providing the building blocks for a coherent and successful pathway beyond 2020.
Throughout the virtual event, attended live by over 100 stakeholders, the Chair of JPI Oceans Management Board Arvid Hallén, Vice Chairs Corinne Muscat-Terribile and Joachim Harms, and Executive Director Thorsten Kiefer presented a newly published first draft of the revised Strategic Framework, guiding stakeholders through its revision process timeline, its goals and objectives, and priority areas (Ocean Health, Ocean Productivity and Ocean Stewardship & Governance).
The presentation was then followed by a special segment by Niall McDonough, member of JPI Oceans Internal Advisory Committee and Management Board, who emphasized the thematic, temporal, leverage and implementation complementarities between the strategically reconfigured JPI Oceans and the forthcoming Horizon Europe Partnership “A climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy”.
All slides from the event can be consulted in PDF format here.
The presentation was followed by a Q&A session in which participants had the opportunity to interact with the speakers, provide initial feedback and ask questions about the draft strategic framework. Questions and comments covered details about priority areas and implementation tools, the cooperation potential and dynamics with other EU and regional sea basin initiatives, the potential role of JPI Oceans in international efforts such as the UN Ocean Decade, scientific knowledge gaps as well as opportunities relating to innovation and technology.
Offering the opportunity to stakeholders to further comment on the draft Strategic Framework, JPI Oceans launched an online stakeholder survey (accessible here) open until 21 September 2020. Stakeholders are invited to share feedback, insights, reflections and experiences that could help JPI Oceans further shape the new strategic framework. The feedback received, along with the feedback from parallel national consultations, will be condensed into a new draft that will be tabled for adoption at the next JPI Oceans Management Board Meeting in November 2020.
JPI Oceans would like to thank all webinar participants and survey respondents for enriching this revision process. Stakeholder participation will be pivotal to ensuring that JPI Oceans embarks on a fruitful and impactful new phase.