Constanța, Romania with its historic port and maritime tradition, was the ideal setting for the first time the EuroGO-SHIP team gathered together in person to present work to date and plan the further implementation of the important EuroGO-SHIP project.
Dan Vasiliu of GeoEcoMar launched the meeting by welcoming his pan-Euro colleagues to Constanța, followed by project coordinator Dr. Elaine McDonagh, of NORCE, setting the bar to identify success stories about how hydrography has helped support positive outcomes for society and the environment, and to investigate the way of which the project will quantify key performance metrics through its various activities.
Throughout the two-day event, the Consortium partners presented progress updates and held interactive workshops and lively discussions to share insights, successes and challenges, including outcomes of initial stakeholder consultations and the strategy for ongoing engagement, and identifying priorities going forward to co-design and build a framework to support, strengthen and add value to European national investments in hydrography.
Highlights from the presentations and discussions include:
- An overview of the successful completion of cruises conducting pilots in salinity and long-term nutrient analysis and training of new techniques in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic and the Black Sea with respect to Shared Facilities, Training and Pan-European Coordination.
- A gap analysis of hydrographic data in the EU marine data system with an in-depth outline of the workflow for how CTD data gets from the ship to the user in near real time, the use of unique identifiers, and how it impacts Ocean forecast models.
- A thorough look at the strategy for engagement and consultation with various stakeholder groups—funding agencies, end-users, existing networks and the hydrography community, to accurately capture and understand the requirements for each stakeholder group in support of co-designing an effective new RI.
- A comprehensive review of the path for ‘Best Practices’ from technique to certification and adoption.
- A robust review of the European research infrastructure landscape and how EuroGO-SHIP fits in towards maximising value to existing networks.
- The Black Sea Hydrographers Workshop
The Annual Meeting ended on a note of satisfaction as a result of the good synergy in the room and the collective work completed to date, and with enthusiasm to achieve the objectives of the project going forward. The wrap up included a look at the success stories, specifically how integration of hydrographic data on weather forecasting as added societal value and the development of effective training pilots. It was announced that the next opportunity for the partners to gather will be in Venice, Italy on the 25-28, June 2024 for the second Annual Meeting.
