North Sea

The North Sea Checkpoint project was a pilot launched by DG MARE designed to assess the usage of available data in answering questions about the North Sea.

The purpose was to audit the value of marine data services to solve particular commercial and policy challenges within the context of the Blue Economy. With increasing number of public marine data sources available, principally through initiatives such as EMODnet and Copernicus it was timely both to (a) support users in finding the right data products to solve their particular challenges and (b) examine how existing data services should be improved; including the content they offer and the way the service is delivered. In essence, the question being answered in the checkpoint projects was: what role do EU initiatives such as EMODnet and Copernicus play in providing information? Indeed, since the context of this data accessibility was also whether or not it met the needs of economic activities and innovation in the marine area, looking further at the entire field of marine information provision has been a priority for the North Sea Checkpoint Project.

The assessment was undertaken through a series of seven challenges acting as a way of providing proxy projects which may face policy makers, commercial or other marine users, requiring usable data in order to deliver them.