Skip to main content
European Commission logo
European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet)
The Atlantic checkpoint activity was undertaken by a European consortium of 10 partners from France, Spain, Ireland, United Kingdom and Portugal. The project started on 27 August 2015 for a duration of 3 years. Ifremer was leading the consortium.
 

Ifremer

 

Ifremer (Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer)
France

Project coordinator, Responsibility of transversal activities (Literature Survey, data Adequacy Reports, Organisation of expert panel review and Stakeholder Workshop), involved in 4 challenges (wind farm, bathymetry, river inputs, alien species) and web portal development (Sextant suite of tools including metadata and indicators database)

Ifremer is the French public research institute for marine exploitation. Created in 1984, IFREMER is a public institute of an industrial and commercial nature (EPIC). It is supervised jointly by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy.
Being involved in all marine science and technology fields, Ifremer has the capability of solving a variety of problems with an integrated approach. Ifremer’s four main topic areasare:

- Understanding, assessing, developing and managing ocean resources from the coastal area to the deep sea; contribution to the exploitation of offshore oil and renewables; understanding ocean circulation (in relation with the global change); sustainable management of fishery resources; optimisation and development of aquaculture production);

- Improving knowledge, protection and restoration methods for the marine environment;

- Production and management of equipment of national interest;

- Socio-economic development of the maritime world.

IFREMER, through its research work and expert advice, contributes to knowledge of the oceans and their resources, to monitoring of marine and coastal environments and to the sustainable development of marine activities. To these ends, IFREMER conceives and operates tools for observation, experimentation and monitoring, and manage the oceanographic databases. It also operates a great part of the ocean research fleet, including all underwater systems and large-scale mobile facilities and equipment (seismics, penetrometer, etc.).

 

AZTI

 

 

AZTI Tecnalia
Spain

Responsibility of 2 challenges, Fishery Management and Alien species and involved in 3 others (Marine Protected Areas, Fishery Impacts and River Inputs)

AZTI-Tecnalia is a non-profit private foundation committed to the social and economic development of the marine environment and food sector. AZTI is part of the Tecnalia Corporation along with NEIKER-Tecnalia and Tecnalia Research & Innovation.

With 30 years of experience, the organization has developed an important network of
collaborating centers both at a national and international level, promoting more than 2.000 projects with industries and public institutions, including 30 European projects running at present.
With a team of 230 professional and a turnover in 2013 of 17.3 M€, as a research and innovation center AZTI is structured into two business divisions: Marine Research and Food Research. Its main activity is focused on its Applied Research projects, New products and services, Scientific advice and Business revitalization and addressed to private companies, scientific organizations and professional associations, as well as local, national and international administrations.

AZTI-GPS participates in the preparation of scientific advice related to the different levels of exploitation and evolution prospects of the fishing resources so the relevant authorities set up the corresponding management measures to ensure sustainable activity. The main role of this knowledge area is to maintain informed and provide advice for the Public Administration and the Basque and Spanish Fishing Sector about the condition of fisheries and possible management measures to guarantee policies designed by each public administration.

 

Marine Institute

 

Marine Institute
Ireland

Responsibility of 1 challenge, Fishery impact, and involved in 2 others (Coasts, River inputs)

The Marine Institute is the State agency responsible for marine research, technology development and innovation in Ireland.  It was set up under the Marine Institute Act 1991: “to undertake, to coordinate, to promote and to assist in marine research and development and to provide such services related to research and development, that in the opinion of the Institute, will promote economic development and create employment and protect the marine environment.”
The Marine Institute carries out environmental, fisheries, and aquaculture surveys and monitoring programmes to meet Ireland’s national and international legal requirements. It provides scientific and technical advice to Government to help inform policy and to support the sustainable development of Ireland’s marine resource, through research, strategic funding programmes, and national marine research platforms.
The vision of the Marine Institute is: "a thriving maritime economy in harmony with the ecosystem and supported by the delivery of excellence in its services."

 

CLS Group

 

CLS Group (Collecte Localisation Satellites)
France

Responsibility of challenge Oil Platform leak and Web Portal development and operations, involved in 2 other challenges (Coasts and Fishery management)

CLS, a subsidiary of CNES (French Space Agency), IFREMER (French Research Institute for exploration of the sea) and ARDIAN, operates and develops since 1986 satellite services in geo-positioning, science and marine environmental data collection, space oceanography and maritime surveillance. CLS has two main offices in France (Toulouse and Brest), and 16 offices and subsidiaries all over the word (e.g. Spain, USA, Peru, Indonesia, Brazil). With a total staff of more than 490, in France and abroad, CLS offers to a broad range of professionals including: government, industry, the scientific community (oceanographers, climatologists, European Commission, Oil & Gas companies, seismic companies) and more:
Since 2004, CLS has been involved in several Copernicus projects related to pollution detection at sea and surface drift prediction:

- Roses and Marcoast (first European demonstrators of maritime environmental and coastal services) Dolphin (space-based maritime surveillance techniques for border surveillance, traffic safety, fisheries control) Sea-U (satellite-based oil spill detection, identification of polluting vessels, oil drift prediction, statistical coastal impact on marine protected areas),

- Sidarus (sea ice downstream services), CleanSeaNet (real-time operational service for SAR-based oil spill detection and identification of polluting vessels, on behalf of EMSA, operated at CLS Brest Vigisat antenna)
Moreover CLS has developed its own drift model which has been implemented by:

- French Navy : the CLS drift model is implemented in the Marylin system operationally used for Search and Rescue missions and oil spill contingency in the five French Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCC)

- Sail races around the globe : CLS drift model has been used together with SAR imagery in order to detect icebergs and predict their drift in Vendee Globe 2008 and 2012 races, Barcelona

- CITEPH Barents, an end-user service-oriented project for TOTAL aiming at detecting icebergs cached in the Barents Sea sea ice and predict their drift.

 

ACRI Group

 

ACRI group (ACRI Hocer Environment)
France

Responsibility of 1 challenge, River inputs and involved in another one, Eutrophication

ACRI is the holding company of a group of SMEs. It is the corporate representative body when dealing with public authorities and investors. The business goals of the company are:

- to strengthen the group’s position as a specialist of fluid dynamics and hydrology (ocean, coastal and continental streams & reservoirs; the water cycle, incl. atmosphere & biosphere), in the fast-growing eco-industry sector,

- to expand the group’s activities in coastal engineering, i.e. hydraulics and marine works in the civil engineering industrial sector (dikes, breakwaters, piers, harbours, marina, dams …),

- to consolidate the group’s role in the Earth Observation (EO) space sector, incl. the EO systems’ design, development and operations, data distribution… in close cooperation with the 2 previous business sectors.

The company is supported by research institutes, civil engineering groups, local communities and authorities,
To achieve its goals, ACRI is investing in environment’s remote sensing, in climatology, natural hazards’ & subsequent risks’ management, so as to build-up a cross-border engineering organization, consolidating the complementarity between subsidiaries under a shared governance made of technical branches’ heads, securing independence from governmental and public organizations and from major industrial enterprises.

Created in 1989, ACRI as a team of 98 professionals and a turnover of 11M€. ACRI’s growth is a 25 years’ business expansion, which started from a computational fluid dynamics S&T consultants’ team based in the Sophia-Antipolis scientific park of the French Riviera. Owing to the trust of its customers, ACRI is now a group of recognised European experts in coastal & harbour engineering, earth observation & modelling, development and operations of EO satellite missions’ ground segment components, with foreign subsidiaries. In July 2014, ACRI acquired the competence of HOCER in environmental and marine studies.

 

HR Wallingford

 

HR Wallingford
United Kingdom

Responsibility of 2 challenges: Eutrophication and Bathymetry, involved in 2 others (Climate and Coasts)

HR Wallingford is an independent environmental and engineering consultancy with a 60 year track record in the provision of specialist services and consultancy advice focussing on the management of water and the water environment. HR Wallingford’s unique expertise in strategic planning, marine hydraulics (including morphological change, flood risk assessment and climate change), the aquatic environment (including ecology), coastal engineering (including windfarms) and navigation ensures that all issues involved in coastal and marine development and management are fully addressed. Our scientific expertise is complemented by our practical experience from our engineering, navigation and dredging specialists. We create multidisciplinary teams of project managers, planners, engineers, operational and environmental specialists to understand the issues of relevance to each project.

SeaZone Solutions, a part of HR Wallingford, specializes in the development and delivery of core coastal and marine datasets to facilitate and enhance the management of the marine environment. SeaZone Solutions integrates a wide range of datasets into their marine spatial data products. Assessing issues such as data quality, data access, consistency and interoperability plays an important part in the initial stages of data gathering for key SeaZone products such as Hydrospatial.

 

IPMA

 

IPMA (Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera)
Portugal

Responsibility of 1 challenge, Wind farm, and involved in Marine Protected Areas and Allien Species Challenges

The Portuguese Institute for the Ocean and Atmosphere, IPMA,  is a Public Research Institution created in 2012 and devoted to Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences and Technology. It is organized in three main units:

- Department of Ocean and Marine Resources;

- Department of Meteorology and Geophysics;

- Department of Operations, Infrastructure and Technological development.

The mission of IPMA is the provision of technical and scientific support for the definition of national policy, operating and maintaining scientific infrastructures, data acquisition and processing, maintenance of national scientific databases on its areas of competence, and promotion and coordination of scientific research and technological development in its areas of expertise. These areas include meteorology, seismology, geomagnetism, marine geology, biology, ecology, water and sediment contaminants, geochemistry, toxicology, and, in general, most of the scientific fields related to ocean, meteorology and climate.

 

CEFAS

 

CEFAS (Center for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science)
United Kingdom

Responsibility of 1 challenge, Climate, and involved in 2 others (Fishery management and Fishery impacts)

CEFAS is an Executive Agency of the British  Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), and a multidisciplinary scientific research and consultancy centre specializing in fisheries science and management and marine monitoring and assessment. Cefas currently employs over 500 staff based in 2 UK laboratories, has its own ocean-going research vessel and provides services to a large number of UK and international public and private sector clients, including Defra, the Environment Agency and the European Commission. Many Cefas scientists are leaders in their fields and advisors on international bodies such as ICES, OSPAR, STECF, ICCAT, IWC.
The Agency focuses on marine and freshwater issues, with its activities extending across the public sector and increasingly into wider markets to bring valuable knowledge, industry insight and financial benefit. It plays an integral role in successful delivery of government marine related priorities, currently illustrated by:

- Enabling innovation to enhance the competitiveness resilience and sustainability of fishing and aquaculture industries. This includes working with Defra and industry to
secure positive outcomes from Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform, and sustaining effective aquatic animal disease controls.

- Leading on the national evidence base and providing trusted advice to support sustainable development of marine and coastal environments, and so help achieve the ambitions of the 2009 Marine & Coastal Access Act. Related activities also support the development and cost effective implementation of national and international environmental policies, such as the Natural Environment White Paper and the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)

- Improving human health and well-being through our expertise on fish and shellfish, supporting food safety and sustainable food production by working closely with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and industry;

- Supporting the “green economy” and UK energy policy through work relating to offshore renewables and its leadership on marine climate change adaptation.

Cefas is responsible for coordinating a number of marine statutory services including collection and reporting on the data collection framework (DCF) and MSFD. In addition Cefas is heavily involved in the collection of evidence for a wide range of statutory obligations elsewhere in local and national government such as characterization of marine conservation zones, water quality and shellfish disease and toxicology.

 

EuroGOOS

 

EuroGOOS (European Global Ocean Observing System)
International

Responsibility of 1 challenge, Coasts

EuroGOOS (European Global Ocean Observing System) is an international non-profit association of 40 national governmental agencies and research organisations from 19 EU countries, operating in the context of UNESCO IOC's Global Ocean Observing System. Founded in 1994, EuroGOOS has played a leading role in improving the quality and cost effectiveness of the ocean observing services in Europe. Through its Regional Operational Oceanographic Systems (ROOSes), strategic working groups and operational instruments, EuroGOOS develops strategies, priorities and standards towards a concerted integrated European Ocean Observing System to the benefit of sustainable blue growth.