BONUS in Brief May 2016

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CONTENTS

MAY 2016

in Brief Editorial: Towards sustainable blue growth

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BONUS innovation projects show evidence of successful collaboration between industrial and scientific partners

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Guest column: Navigating towards a sustainable blue economy in the Baltic Sea

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BONUS archipelago: Reinforcing thematic collaboration across research and innovation projects

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A record-high number of enterprises in proposals submitted to ‘BONUS call 2015: Blue Baltic’

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News from members of the BONUS Steering Committee and Advisory Board

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Steps towards rewarding public engagement

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BONUS in Brussels on 1-2 December 2015

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BONUS at European Maritime Day 2016

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New BONUS publications

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Event calendar

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BONUS members

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EDITORIAL

Towards sustainable blue growth

by Kaisa Kononen, Executive Director, BONUS

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BONUS

here was a time, not so long ago, when marine scientists were working in an ivory tower, environmentalists marching on the streets, industry polluting, engineers developing more and more effective production technologies and businessmen making money. And all opposing one another.

The above is, of course, an exaggeration. But the truth is that a major change has taken place during the era of my generation. Today we understand that the multitude of human activities affected by and

impacting on the marine ecosystem are all necessary. Individual citizens, as we are, need conditions for good life, and that comes from jobs created by economy and business. We want also to enjoy the nature, we want to swim in clean water, rest our brains by settling eyes on beautiful marine sceneries.

We want to be sure that the food caught from or farmed in the sea is tasty and healthy. We want to be ethically and ecologically responsible citizens and handle the various harmful outcomes from our life styles sustainably, namely managing the waste properly, exploiting natural resources sustainably, avoiding damaging nature’s habitats and so on.

Blue growth is defined as the long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole. It is, in fact, for the first time in history an overarching concept across many fields and sectors of the society. It responds to the multitude of needs of the citizens living on the coasts and regions surrounding seas.

It brings together actors and groups which only a few decades

ago saw each other as enemies in opposing fronts.

From the very beginning BONUS has taken into account the need for communicating across sectors. In the beginning it was through an advisory board. Currently BONUS advisory board includes representatives of Baltic Earth, Baltic Sea Regional Programme, Waterborne, BalticSTERN, Black Sea Commission, BSR Stars, HELCOM, OSPARCOM, International Council for the Exploration of the Seas ICES, VASAB, WWF, Cargotec Ltd as well as Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans. Also, individual experts are included from universities of Maryland, Helsinki and East Anglia as well as Polish Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation. We are pleased to have this newsletter’s guest column written by Pauli Merriman, Director of the Baltic Ecoregion Programme of WWF, an organisation which offers a way to every citizens to work for the benefit of our nature.

But most importantly, BONUS science has gradually progressed

towards blue growth. The first BONUS research agenda, published ten years ago focused on the Baltic Sea marine ecosystem.

The second strategic research agenda six year later broadened the scope to cover the drainage area and included innovation.

Now a major new step has been taken. In the end of last year BONUS together with three new countries (France, Belgium and the Netherlands) submitted a proposal to the European Commission for continuing the BONUS legacy in years 2018-2023. The proposal is titled ‘Towards sustainable blue growth - Outline of the joint Baltic Sea and the North Sea research and innovation programme’. Despite broadening of the geographical scope, the focus of the new programme will be on growth based on resources provided by marine ecosystem, and how they can be exploited sustainably without damaging the marine environment and its capacity to provide goods and services.

The progress has been amazing – something that I could not anticipate when marching for the environment as a youngster. 

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BONUS innovation projects show evidence of successful collaboration between industrial and scientific partners

by Markku Ranta, Innovation Call Manager, BONUS

Thirteen innovation projects under the BONUS programme have demonstrated that collaboration between industrial and academic partners can produce tangible results that are readily applicable to the current challenges in sustainable maritime development and safety on the sea. BONUS projects foster cooperation between countries of the Baltic Sea basin. Results and experience can be applied in other sea basins defined in the Blue Growth Strategy of EU.

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his collaboration benefits both: the real-life needs and constrains are recognised by the industrial partners while the state-of-the-art research and scientific knowledge is provided by the research partners. The projects contribute directly to the Blue Growth Strategy of the EU especially in areas of maritime safety and Marine Knowledge 2020.

The following six innovation projects are completing their work in the coming (or recent) months:

BONUS ESABALT improves maritime safety through enhanced situational awareness: A novel solution has been developed for increased sharing of and access to the maritime information. Conventionally, each information source has its own ecosystem and should be monitored independently.

The novel BONUS ESABALT system, however, integrates various information sources

into a common platform: satellites, buoys, commercial and pleasure vessels, autonomous sensor stations and land-based monitoring systems. After testing in real environment, the platform is now ready to be deployed and free-to-use by anyone. E.g. marine electronics manufacturer can integrate the BONUS ESABALT capability into their navigational plotters.

This means that the new information platform offers a huge innovation and commercialisation potential to any European commercial manufacturer of maritime products and services.

BONUS ANCHOR provides a digital captain assistant for navigation and routing of large ship operations in harbour areas. It has piloted a satellitebased assistance and navigation system targeting the approach of large vessels to (and from) dedicated docking positions in harbours. The main goal is to offer a unique tool to analyse the influence of the traffic within

coastal areas and to raise safety and efficiency of maritime traffic. The prototype was introduced to a broad audience of stakeholders and potential users in Gdynia-Gdansk harbour in March 2016. As for the main outcome of the project, the environmental footprint of each ship can be now followed, analysed and assessed.

BONUS FERRYSCOPE focusses on sensor fusion to improve the assessment of the seawater quality. Satellite and shipborne optical measurement data are integrated to generate a situational view of the water quality using the advanced algorithms and models developed in the project. The end-users, national monitoring agencies and researchers have been familiarised to the new system to ensure the deployment of the results. The applied open-source technology is ready to be commercialised.

BONUS GEOILWATCH integrates

ALFONS HÅKANS

Artist impression on the set of modern salvage tool for oil removal operations. ©BONUS SWERA

Hakaniemenranta 6 00530 Helsinki, Finland Tel. +358 40 040 4011 Fax +358 9 4780 0044 Email: bonus@bonuseeig.fi Website: www.bonusportal.org/inbrief

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Editor-in-Chief: Maija Sirola Editor: Laura Eskelinen Editorial board: Andris Andrusaitis, Ritva Järvenpää, Kaisa Kononen, Markku Ranta, Meelis Sirendi, Minna Ulvila Layout: Graaf Oy / Jani Osolanus Printing: Painotalo Plus Digital Oy, Porvoo 2016

BONUS is a joint Baltic Sea research and development programme producing knowledge to support development and implementation of regulations, policies and management practices specifically tailored for the Baltic Sea region.

It issues calls for competitive proposals and funds projects of high excellence and relevance based on its strategic research agenda.

BONUS SWERA project has

Rflex platform with hyperspectral Rrs instrument installed on M/S Finnmaid. ©BONUS FERRYSCOPE

sensor data from multiple sources to tackle the critical problem of detecting oil spills on the sea. The project’s aim has been to reduce the number of unnoticed oil spills by factor of four. The innovative data management system gathers together data from Ferryboxes mounted on ships, from drifters, from aerial monitoring using flying drone-devices and from satellites. Novel algorithms developed in the project allow satellite data to be used for detection of oil on seawater.

A proof-of-concept of a data interface with the web platform that has resulted from the project provides now key data on oil spills in a timely fashion.

BONUS ZEB aims towards a Zero Emission concept for oily water emissions. The focus is on oily water separation and development of existing technologies. Cleaned bilge waters are the main source of pollution with oil products in the Baltic Sea. BONUS ZEB has conducted state-of-the-art research in pollutant concentration in bilge waters as well as studied and refined commercial bilge water cleaning system in real-life environment. The target of the proof-of-concept is to remove pollutants to the level comparable to the standard drinking water. This would be the end of the story for bilge waters released to the sea!

BONUS is funded jointly from the national research funding institutions in the eight EU member states around the Baltic Sea and the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration by a total of EUR 100 million for the years 2011–2017.

Russia participates in BONUS through bilateral agreements.

developed a new approach to the risk analysis of sunken wrecks. The new approach combines a novel oil removal risk analysis tool into the existing and widely used risk assessment tool VRAKA. This will result in more successful and economical salvage operations.

The new tool and the knowledge of the academic partners were demonstrated and validated in real operational situations by the industrial partner using stateof-the-art technologies such as remotely operated underwater robots.

The following seven BONUS innovation projects are finishing their work in 2017:

BONUS AFISMON – Development of the current Automatic Flow Injection Sampler to monitor microbially driven biogeochemical processes in the Baltic Sea water BONUS FISHVIEW – Assessing fish passages by the use of a robotic fish sensor and enhanced digital imaging BONUS HARDCORE – Harnessing coastal radars for environmental monitoring purposes BONUS MICROALGAE – Cost efficient algal cultivation systems – a source of emission control and industrial development BONUS OPTITREAT – Optimisation of small wastewater treatment facilities BONUS PINBAL – Development of a spectrophotometric pH-measurement system for monitoring the Baltic Sea BONUS PROMISE – Phosphorus recycling of mixed substances  Visit www.bonusportal.org/inno and check BONUS media for further news on the outcomes of the BONUS innovation projects ending in 2017!

BONUS in Brief is published by the BONUS Secretariat to keep the BONUS community, including partners and supporters, informed about current views and news about BONUS activities and accomplishments.

BONUS EEIG is the legal management organisation of BONUS. © 2016 BONUS Baltic Organisations’ Network for Funding Science EEIG

BONUS guest column

In this column we publish invited opinion articles by experts of their fields, featuring particular perspectives on a topic relevant to the BONUS community and the sustainable, knowledge-based governance of the regional seas.

Navigating towards a sustainable blue economy in the Baltic Sea Imagine a truly sustainable blue economy in the Baltic Sea – one that actually helps bring the Baltic Sea back to health by fitting within the boundaries of the sea’s ecosystems, accelerating the adoption of clean technologies and renewable energy, and creating circular material flows.

Imagine that this process creates new jobs and economic opportunities.

Imagine that all stakeholders get involved, including governments, research institutions, businesses, civil society groups and individual citizens, young and old. We believe that this vision is achievable and that all stakeholders, especially the scientific community through BONUS, are needed to help create a truly sustainable blue economy in the Baltic Sea — one that ensures increased prosperity for the long term.

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CONOMIES COME IN A VARIETY of shapes and

DEPOSITPHOTOS

colours these days – from linear to circular, from brown to green and now to various shades of blue. Understanding these terms, and their relationship to each other as well to what is ‘sustainable’, can be quite a challenge.

During the past few years ’blue growth‘ and ’blue economy‘ have surged into common policy usage all over the world.

Yet we know that a fundamental weakness of the blue economy, despite increasing high-level adoption of the term in policymaking, research agendas and investment, is that there is still no commonly agreed, scientifically-based definition of what a sustainable blue economy is.

To have a clear view of what the region is aiming for with a sustainable blue economy, we need to step back and get a big-picture understanding of the whole system. We need clear definitions that can be translated into operational and measurable goals and targets, so that we can determine whether the growth strategies that are being pursued in our region are actually taking us in the right direction. We need a framework for seeking win-win solutions and making decisions about the inevitable trade-offs that will come up along the way.

Without such a framework, we risk undermining the very possibility of long-term growth and development in the Baltic

Sea region — and we may end up with a ’blue economy‘ that is more brown than green.

To help fill this gap in shared understanding, WWF has developed a set of ’Principles for a Sustainable Blue Economy,’ based on a global consultation process, that we believe can serve as a navigational chart for stakeholders in the public and private sectors. Following these ‘Principles’ will help point our region’s economic development, and especially its marine-based economy, in the same direction that was agreed to by the world’s governments last year at the United Nations. The historic ‘2030 Agenda’ and the 17 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG) apply just as strongly here as they do anywhere. The ‘Principles’ are fully in alignment with the SDGs, and especially SDG 14 — which calls for conserving our oceans and seas and using them sustainably for economic prosperity.

The ‘Principles for a Sustainable Blue Economy’ offer: • A CLEAR DEFINITION of a sus-

tainable blue economy. In general terms: an economy that provides social and economic benefits for current and future generations, that protects and maintains the diversity, productivity, resilience, and core ecological functions of the Baltic Sea, and that is based on clean technologies, renewable energy, and circular material flows.

• GUIDANCE ON GOVERNANCE.

The ‘Principles’ describe how a sustainable blue economy must be steered and managed, by public as well as by private actors, at every scale.

• A SET OF NECESSARY ACTIONS.

This section of the ‘Principles’ describes what needs to be done, by every stakeholder, if a sustainable blue economy is to be realised.

In short, the ‘Principles’ provide both a destination — in the form of a set of framing conditions within which the blue economy must operate — and a roadmap to help us get there.

Now we need to turn these ‘Principles’ into hard numbers, formulating clear and measurable targets and indicators for each sector and for the blue economy as a whole, based on the best scientific information our region can muster. To this end, the work of BONUS research and innovation to boost sustainable development based on sound, scientific knowledge, is critical.

The Baltic Sea region is extremely well positioned to become the first truly sustainable blue economy in the world, where both land-based and sea-based economic activities are transformed into ’circular economies’ that operate within the framework of ecosystem boundaries, relying on clean technologies, renewable energy, and closed-loop material flows.

It can become a model where people and businesses prosper

WWF

by Pauli Merriman, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme

Ms. Pauli Merriman, Director of the WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme, a regional network comprised of WWF and NGO partners in each of the nine coastal Baltic Sea countries working together to secure a healthy, diverse and resilient Baltic Sea, sustainably managed for the benefit of people and nature of the region.

amidst healthy, well-managed ecosystems.

We have many of the right policies already in place, to which countries have already committed, such as the EU Integrated Maritime Policy, the EU Marine Framework Directive and the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. These hold great promise, if they are implemented. We have the necessary know-how, technology, and capital. We have a regional population that appears willing to invest in a healthy sea. But if we want to succeed, we have to think in new ways: outside of the silos, beyond the ministry walls, and across the borders between economic sectors, countries, and issue areas. We also need to see policies and initiatives that improve the marine environment as high-return investments that will also drive innovation and secure a more prosperous future.

Our region faces big challenges — but in our report, ‘All Hands on Deck’, we also highlighted the opportunities and strengths that the blue economy approach builds on. By taking leadership on ’green technology‘ and ’circular economy‘ in a “blue” context, and by using all the best-practice policy tools effectively (such as marine spatial planning with an ecosystembased approach), our region can truly be world-leading example.

And it can harvest the economic benefits as well.

Fortunately, many govern­ments,

organisations and communities in the Baltic region (as well as globally) are becoming aware of the need for a more coherent, integrated, fair, and sciencebased approach to managing the economic development of the oceans. Humanity increasingly understands that we are an integral part of the marine ecosystem, and that we must plan and implement our economic activities with care, balancing the desire to improve human living standards and wellbeing with the imperative to sustain ecosystem health.

In this respect and others, BONUS is already leading the way. The work undertaken across the BONUS projects is already providing critical input needed to help steer the blue economy in a sustainable direction. BONUS’s work through cross disciplinary, multi-partner and transnational projects to provide guidance for these questions is crucial in order to effectively address what could be one of the most fundamental challenges of our time.

If there was ever a time when we needed everyone on board, working hard, pulling in the same direction to aim us toward a sustainable future for the Baltic Sea economy, it’s now. That’s why our report was titled ‘All Hands on Deck’. We look forward to working with BONUS and all stakeholders towards this end. 

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BONUS archipelago: Reinforcing thematic collaboration across research and innovation projects

by Andris Andrusaitis, Programme Manager, BONUS

Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress Working together is success.

Henry Ford Why it pays off to collaborate?

activities. The feedback by projects that started in 2015 was added later and yielded a network model of the 28 BONUS projects that we now call the ’BONUS archipelago’ (see Figure 1 below).

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n autumn of 2014, we asked BONUS project coordinators to examine their sister projects’ compositions and aims, and then point to those with whom – for added value and other reasons – there would be enough common ground to consider forging collaborative

Clustering with purpose Each clustering activity must have its specific purpose and objective that, although originating from the aims of individual projects, would go beyond the tasks of individual projects and strengthen the overall programme-level impact.

added values to the project clustering and cross-project collaboration effort:

Clustering principles

The following three principles were considered to bring most

Clustering ‘bottom-up’ The most productive and successful are those clustering activities, which originate from the needs of project implementation and are initiated by motivated project partners themselves. Programme-level support is prioritised to those activities where such lead for the cluster initiative’s coordination and management is already in place.

Variable configuration of clusters As majority of the BONUS projects are diverse, broad and multifaceted, an attempt to fix them into a rigid and permanent framework of thematic clustering would be challenging to say

GEOILWATCH

SWERA CHANGE

ISLAND D

SHEBA STORMWINDS

ZEB

ISLAND B

HARDCORE

ISLAND A BAMBI AFISMON

ESABALT

BLUEPRINT

PINBAL

BIO-C3 COCOA

FERRYSCOPE

INSPIRE

BALTICAPP SOILS2SEA

MICROALGAE

MIRACLE

BALTCOAST

ANCHOR

FISHVIEW

GOHERR

PROMISE

ISLAND C

BONUS

OPTITREAT

GO4­ BALTIC

BALTSPACE

Figure 1: The BONUS archipelago. Research projects are in light blue circles and innovation projects in orange circles. Arrows indicate the direction of interest expressed by members of different BONUS project consortia. The green ‘islands’ indicate the emerging clusters and groupings among the 28 BONUS projects.

Island A: The cluster ‘Coastal biogeochemistry processes and indicators’ is formed by BONUS COCOA and BLUEPRINT research projects and is supported by BONUS innovation projects developing enhanced sampling and data acquisition methods for research: AFISMON, PINBAL and FERRYSCOPE. Island B: The cluster ’Spatial patterns of marine biological diversity‘ is formed by BONUS BIO-C3, INSPIRE and BAMBI research projects. This overlaps partly with the ‘Island A’ cluster.

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Island C: The cluster ’Combating nutrient loads from the drainage’ has its core with BONUS SOILS2SEA, GO4BALTIC and MIRACLE research projects and is supported by targeted BONUS innovation projects OPTITREAT and MICROALGAE. Island D: Cluster ’Clean and safe shipping‘ involves BONUS research projects CHANGE, SHEBA, STORMWINDS, and is supported by BONUS innovation projects SWERA, GEOILWATCH, ESABALT, ANCHOR HARDCORE and ZEB. Four BONUS research projects, namely BALTICAPP, GOHERR, BALTSPACE and BALTCOAST bear comprehensive and predominantly interdisciplinary character and thus occupy a very important interface position among the thematic clusters that address more specific issues.

the least. Instead, during their lifetime these projects can form different configurations of clusters in order to jointly pursue one or the other objective. As an example, the objective-level analysis of all ongoing BONUS projects produced a list of different cluster tasks where joint effort of several projects can deliver clear benefit.

Cluster tasks

Currently 14 potential broader collaboration tasks have been defined to provide basis for BONUS project clustering and collaboration plans for 2016, 2017 and beyond. Here are some examples of these:

Support improvement of governance and management of human activities in order to achieve sustainable use of ecosystem services in a long term while maintaining good environmental status of the Baltic Sea This key objective of BONUS is very well covered by a 10-strong cluster of BONUS projects: BAMBI, CHANGE, SOILS2SEA, BALTCOAST, BALTSPACE, BALTICAPP, GOHERR, GO4BALTIC, SHEBA and INSPIRE. Examples of potential tasks include identification of still-existing obstacles in a way of efficient and well-informed relevant policies. Close cooperation with key stakeholders is particularly important when addressing this collaborative task.

Create new practical stakeholder information and decision support tools for users Seven BONUS projects, namely MIRACLE, BALTICAPP, GOHERR, BALTSPACE, BALTCOAST, BLUEPRINT and STORMWINDS, have identified production of stakeholder information and decision support tools as one of their key outputs.

Although the application of different tools is quite diverse, the target groups of potential users are often the same and may even overlap thematically. Hence the BONUS clustering activity together with other regional and pan-European players and possibly also broader international expertise (e.g. from USA, Canada, Australia) could address

RODEO

this key issue. For instance, to avoid any confusion amongst the end-users and ensure most effective user experience across different tools, it would be important to (i) agree on a common definition of a decision support tool, (ii) develop a unified catalogue of the available tools, (iii) establish a common access point and a coherent user interface (the ‘BONUS toolbox’), (iv) agree on usage of coherent data sources and finally (v) address the well-known issue of sustaining the tools after the end of projects’ lifetime.

Support mitigating the Baltic Sea eutrophication by developing efficient policy measures and management practices, including cost-benefit analysis of combating eutrophication Mitigation of the Baltic eutrophication problem demands both cross-sector policy linkages and an extremely complex cost-benefit analysis.

This could potentially lead to developing, testing and introducing an entirely novel array of economic measures and mechanisms, e.g. nutrient emission fees and emission trading as well as cross-border sharing of reduction costs.

Seven ongoing BONUS projects, namely COCOA, SOILS2SEA, GO4BALTIC, BALTICAPP, MIRACLE, PROMISE and GOHERR, are dealing specifically with the eutrophication problem. As so much research effort has addressed eutrophication problem in the past years, it is now timely to assess how fully a scientific consensus has been achieved, and in which directions the most urgent further investigations are necessary. Such clustering activity could involve also the specialist macro-regional level actors e.g. EUSBSR priority area ‘Nutri’, INTERREG Baltic Sea Region Programme, Baltic Nest Institute, Stockholm Resilience Centre and others.

Support advancement towards safe and clean shipping in the Baltic.

Today on average 2000 ships are at Baltic Sea each day, including 200 tankers carrying oil or other potentially harmful products. It is estimated that transportation of goods by the Baltic Sea will double by 2017; general cargo and container traffic is expected to triple, and oil transportation may increase by 40%. The Baltic Sea is also a busy area of passenger and cruise shipping, as well as leisure boating. The broad goal of advancement towards safer and cleaner shipping is addressed by seven ongoing BONUS projects, namely ANCHOR, CHANGE, ESABALT, GEOILWATCH, SHEBA, STORMWINDS and ZEB. This task is very much in line with the objective of the HELCOM maritime working group. Thus, one potential point of input could be contributions to the update of HELCOM’s integrated thematic assessment on maritime activities and response to pollution at sea in the Baltic Sea region (previously issued in 20101).

Advance data gathering and handling techniques for improved surveillance, monitoring and environmental status assessment As many as eight BONUS projects (AFISMON, CHANGE, FERRYSCOPE, FISHVIEW, GEOILWATCH, GOHERR, HARDCORE, PINBAL) contribute to development of new sensors, measurement devices and instrument platforms.

Possible tasks for clustering activities uniting all these projects would be informing

1 HELCOM, 2010 Maritime Activities in the Baltic Sea – An integrated thematic assessment on maritime activities and response to pollution at sea in the Baltic Sea Region. Balt. Sea Environ. Proc. No. 123

THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER COLLABORATIONS BY THE BONUS SCIENTISTS ARE THOSE WHICH: Help integrate project outputs into amore impactful results Facilitate exchange of data and results Promote exchange of research methods approaches Carry out joint training and dissemination activities Foster joint use of research infrastructure Shared personnel as 'natural integrators' Provide opportunity to arrange joint seminars and workshops on themes of mutual interest * The length of each green bar corresponds to the weight of different collaboration motives as registered in internal BONUS query.

First highlights: SEPTEMBER 2015: Three BONUS projects – BIO-C3, INSPIRE and BAMBI – convened at the ICES annual science conference a hugely successful and abundantly attended theme session “From genes to ecosystems: spatial heterogeneity and temporal dynamics of the Baltic Sea”.

APRIL 2016: Six BONUS projects and other organisations took part in the BONUS BALTICAPP projectinitiated pilot workshop on future scenarios of the Baltic Sea region. The aim of this clustering activity was to take the first steps in exploring and developing a set of coherent storylines for future development of multiple regional drivers and pressures affecting the Baltic Sea. In effect, the whole workshop served as a considered experiment to explore plausible future sectoral developments in the Baltic Sea region under different global futures. It was agreed, at the end of the workshop, to continue joint work and write a collaborative journal article on regionalised scenarios for the Baltic Sea. JULY 2016: Five BONUS projects embark on a joint outreach campaign “Towards safe and clean shipping and boating in the Baltic”. Activities of the campaign will take place at “Almedalsveckan” (Swedish Politicians’ Week) held on the island of Gotland in July. This outreach activity will be integrated with the BONUS SHEBA sampling campaign in the Baltic on board of a sailboat “Hrimfare”.

SEPTEMBER 2016: Two BONUS projects – COCOA and BALTCOAST will run a joint theme session at the 56th symposium of Estuarine and Coastal Science Association (ECSA): “Coastal filters under remake”.

The BONUS session will take a stock of our knowledge on performance and future development of one of the most important coastal ecosystem services: providing so-called ‘coastal filter’, which transforms and retains nutrients and hazardous pollutants incoming from land. Conveners invite also contributions addressing advanced coastal management strategies, tools and solutions in order to maintain and restore the efficacy of the ‘coastal filter’.

NOVEMBER 2016: Ten BONUS projects are set to write a scientific foresight paper and provide valuable lessons for other systems worldwide on the topic of "The Baltic Sea: a model for the global future ocean?" which was also the title of a PhD course initiated by the BONUS BIO-C3 project and held in summer 2015. Contributions are planned from experts in the fields of oceanography, climate and environmental projections, ecology, evolutionary potential, fisheries biology, human pressures, and ecosystem based management.

the scientific community about emerging new data acquisition opportunities, fostering regional cooperation between developers and producers of different components, as well as initiating joint testing and calibration activities of the new instruments. In 2015, a joint technology transfer workshop was held as a side-event of the Tenth Baltic Sea Science Congress.

We hope that such workshops,

accompanied by an exhibition of new devices, will become a mainstay in the Baltic Sea Science Congresses to come.

Many more aspirations for future clustering and collaboration activities are already in the pipeline and a concrete plan for year 2017 activities will be discussed and confirmed in the BONUS Steering Committee meeting later this year. With the BONUS clustering initiative

now having shown such an enthusiast resonance amongst the BONUS projects, it is clear that the projects themselves are so much more than just a bunch of isolated islands lost amidst the restless sea of scientific pursuit and ceaseless competition. In fact, somebody within the BONUS community (re)invented the term ‘coopetition’… 

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A record-high number of enterprises in proposals submitted to ‘BONUS call 2015: Blue Baltic’

by Meelis Sirendi, Programme Officer, BONUS

Altogether nine themes out of the 19 included in the BONUS strategic research agenda 2011-2017 were opened for the BONUS call 2015: Blue Baltic worth a total of EUR 30 million (max of EUR 3 million per project).

A total of 75 proposals were received by the proposal submission deadline of 10 March 2016. Now the independent evaluators will rank the proposals in May. The BONUS Steering Committee will then meet in mid-June 2016 to make decisions of projects to be invited to funding negotiations.

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his time the themes were divided between two groups, the first group included themes with more scientific outcomes, and the second group had topics of more applied nature. For the second group, only proposals in which at least 25% of BONUS funding was allocated to enterprises were eligible and forwarded to the evaluation. The previous innovation call in 2012 had relatively low participation share of enterprises and hence this new eligibility criterion was aimed at consortia involving partners from all stages of innovation chain, particularly enterprises to the planned work.

To ensure fair competition between proposals with different eligibility criteria, also the call budget has been earmarked between the two groups of themes – at least EUR 16 million for ‘themes one’ and at least EUR 12 million for ‘themes two’, with both groups having separate ranking lists.

The 75 proposals received by

the deadline requested a total of EUR 169.1 million – this is 5.6 times more than available. Fiftytwo proposals were submitted to the group of ‘themes one’ requesting EUR 124.4 million and 23 proposals to the group of ‘themes two’ requesting EUR 44.7 million. So, the tougher application conditions will be rewarded with softer competition – 7.8 versus 3.7.

Most popular themes were ‘Multilevel impacts of hazardous substances’ with 13 proposals, ‘Developing remote sensing techniques’ with 12 proposals and ‘Food web structure and dynamics’ with 9 proposals.

Least popular topics were ‘ICT’ with 2 proposals and ‘Sustainable aquaculture in the Baltic Sea’ with 3 proposals in ‘themes one’ (focus on scientifically justified criteria on aquaculture) and 5 proposals in ‘themes two’ (foci on fish feed and recirculation technologies).

There are 522 partners in the proposals, it means on average seven partners per proposal.

nature, comparably bigger share of coordinators are from Estonia (5) and Poland (4). Besides the partners from BONUS countries there are also partners from Russia (3) as well as from other EU and associated countries (12) and other third countries (6) i.e. from Australia, Canada and USA. A total of 34 consortia (45%) have also (an) enterprise partner(s). For the group of ‘themes two’ this is a precondition but also 11 consortia applying for ‘themes one’ have an enterprise partner. The share of enterprise partners has increased considerably over time: in the previous BONUS

The biggest participation is from Sweden (110 partners in proposals) followed by Germany (102), Finland and Denmark (both 73). Swedes are also most active as coordinators – in 22 cases, followed by Germans, Finns and Danes (12 each). However, in the group of themes of more applied

5.3. ICT

1.3. Food web

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5.2. Remote sensing

call 2014 ‘Sustainable ecosystem services’ call it was as low as 5.4% and for BONUS call 2012 (consisting of two parts: ‘Viable ecosystem’ and ‘Innovation’) 7.8%. Now in the Blue Baltic call, the share of enterprises has increased to 14.6%.

As the next steps, the independent evaluators will complete their work by the end of May and the consortia will be informed about the outcomes of the call in mid-June once the BONUS Steering Committee decision has been made. After successfully passing the contract negotiations, the projects are expected to start the implementation in January 2017. 

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12 3.5. Aquaculture (2)

2.4. Eco-technology (2)

3

1.4. Hazardous substances

13

6

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7 5.1. Monitoring

6 4.3. MSP

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2.4. Eco-technology (1)

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3.5. Aquaculture (1) 4.2. Ecosystem services

News from BONUS Steering Committee and Advisory Board members: HELCOM: Work on HELCOM’s com-

prehensive HOLAS II assessment is well under way with first results expected to be released by mid-2017. The main aim of HOLAS II is to give an update on the overall state of ecosystem health in the Baltic Sea. 

Find out more at www.helcom.fi/ helcom-at-work/projects/holas-ii

Interreg Baltic Sea Region Managing Authority/Joint Secretariat: In the first call of the

Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme 2014-2020 several projects were approved on the topic of blue growth. They deal with issues such as increasing transnational coherence of shipping routes and energy corridors in maritime spatial planning (MSP), greening cruise ports, innovative marine biotechnology and countering eutrophication by farming and harvesting blue mussels. 

aspects of microplastics: Four research projects investigating the impact of plastic particles on the marine environment are selected for funding from ten member countries of the JPI Oceans. The kick-off meeting in February 2016 in Madrid provided an opportunity to align their activities and discuss how their results can feed into ongoing (political) processes.  Find out more at www.jpi-oceans.eu/ ecological-aspects-microplastics

BalticSTERN Secretariat: A synthesis paper (Blenckner et al, 2015) partly initiated by the Stockholm Resilience Centre has been published addressing the urgent action necessary in support of effective implementation of ecosystem-based management in the future. The paper looks at how to advance and integrate the scientific knowledge of pollution and legal frameworks, ecosystem processes and scale-dependent effects by using innovative tools and methods.  Read the paper at link.springer.com/ article/10.1007/s13280-015-0661-9

Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF): Open invitation to everyone

to explore the fascination of science! They are vast, mysterious and still largely unexplored – the seas and oceans are the origin of all life and vital to the future of humanity. This is what German marine researchers will set out to show during the Science Year 2016 from 17 June 2016 until September 2017.  Find out more at www.wissenschaftsjahr.de (in German only)

DEPOSITPHOTOS

Find out more at www.interreg-baltic. eu/about-projects.html

JPI Oceans: Exploring the ecological

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| BO NUS IN BR IEF M AY 2016

Steps towards rewarding public engagement

by Laura Eskelinen, Communications Trainee, BONUS

I

n 2015, a total of 28 000 visits were recorded to the new BONUS projects’ managed website www.bonusprojects. org. Over half of the visits were to the blogs’ section containing

project members to their own, joint promotional web-based platform had to be kept as low as possible while still maintaining a good quality base-level with all the content that got posted.

“What if all of the world’s problems have already been solved, but the answers are buried in reports and articles that nobody reads?”

After a year of familiarising with the website, it was time to boost the blogging skills further. A bunch of BONUS young scientists participated in a blogging and social media training on 7 March 2016. The training was held by a science communication company ‘Kaskas Media’ and supported by ‘PE2020 Public Engagement Innovations for Horizon 2020’ project that chose BONUS as one of its pilot cases.

CHARLOTTE ANGOVE

BONUS young scientists’ blog posts on their experiences while working in BONUS projects.

The ca. 15 000 blog visits to this website, established only in late 2014, was only the starting point with no underlined promotions or specific training for bloggers provided (besides the web writing and posting guidelines).

There was one main idea directing all the actions on projects’ website: the threshold for producing content by enthusiastic

BONUS COCOA young scientists Johanna Gammal and Marie Järnström on a field trip in 2016. Photo from Johanna and Marie’s blog The Benthosphere (www.bonusprojects.org/bonusprojects/blogs/ the_benthosphere/).

The training gathered almost 30 enthusiastic young scientists from all around the Baltic Sea region together to the online session to hear how science could and should be popularised, and how to use different channels for more effective science communication. With many great practices and advices shared on the day, young scientists were tasked to write their own blog posts – some for the very first time. Altogether eight blog posts were finished for the evaluation, and more new blogs and blog posts were published later. Now there are already 30 blogs on the website!

As for social media, young scientists were strongly encouraged to discover and utilise it open-mindedly. Of course the traditional channels, for example Twitter and LinkedIn, but also some channels one would not believe to be useful at a first glance, like Wikipedia, but which give surprisingly many opportunities for a scientist.

The training did not only bring BONUS a bunch of new bloggers, but also a boost for the whole projects’ website. Readers found their favourites and traffic to the blogs’ section increased manyfold – from tens to hundreds per a day. Right after the training session from March to late April – in just less than two months – the blogs had been visited almost 3000 times, which equals to two times as many

visitors than in previous two months prior to the training.

And the composition of people visiting is surely international: Finns have the lead, but visitors from Sweden, Germany, Baltic states, Poland, Denmark, and even Italy are well presented.

Promotion in the social media seems to work: in addition to Google and BONUS website, significant amount of the traffic comes from Facebook! Cooperation plays an important role in increasing the traffic: wellplanned guidance for bloggers to the practices of self-promotion and central input together will make, no doubt, the site visit records break again this year!

After all, it is crucial to remember that succeeding in blogging and mastering the social media is not a sprint race, but instead a long-distance run – efforts are needed on every step of the way.

The slow and steady wins the race!

Seeing growing numbers is always satisfying, but even more so is reading inspiring, well-written, thoughtful and funny blog posts. BONUS blogs give something for Baltic Sea science experts, other stakeholders and any lay-person simply interested in our dear Sea. Read why knowing consumers and marketing theories is important for the Baltic Sea science, what are the three changes under the surface that we can feel in everyday life – how are you

THE TEN MOST IMPORTANT TIPS FOR SCIENCE BLOGGER

Come up with a good idea for the blog post

Put extra effort in the

headline Start with your best bit Limit the amount of jargon to minimum Chop it up with subheadings, links, photos…

Use short paragraphs and sentences Try various formats, like listicles, photo series, how to –posts…

Think outside the box & be creative Read other science blogs and ‘borrow their secrets’ Promote your blog in various channels

affected by eutrophication, overfishing or climate change, and see the world through the eyes of the Baltic seal. Or if you have always wanted to see how it is like on the research cruises, you can check the travel stories and photo series that reveal you the every-day reality on the vessel. These and many more inspiring writings you will find from www.bonusprojects.org/ blogs. Happy reading!  Find us also on Twitter and Facebook: @BONUSBaltic

BONUS in Brussels on 1–2 December 2015 BONUS organised an intense series of well-received events in Brussels on 1–2 December 2015 hosted by DG Research and Innovation, European Commission

The kick-off conference of the eight sustainable ecosystem services (SES) projects that had started their implementation earlier in 2015 was attended by BONUS project coordinators and other project team members from 26 BONUS projects as well as members of the Steering Committee and the Advisory Board. The presentations by the SES projects were well received and generated further discussion among the 80 participants.

After the networking lunch further discussions on BONUS programme related matters e.g. projects’ clustering initiative (see pages 4-5) continued in

small-group meetings of the Project Coordinators, as well as the Advisory Board and the Steering Committee.

Wednesday, 2 December 2015, 11:00–14:00 Information event showcased BONUS's impact, value and relevance for the European community, The close to 100 participants, including representatives from the Commission Services, the European Parliament, country offices and other stakeholders from the European community were welcomed to a BONUS information event and a networking lunch which was kicked off by welcoming words delivered by John Bell, Director of Bioeconomy, DG Research and Innovation, European

Commission and followed up by 26 BONUS projects taking the centre stage in explaining the essence of their respective projects in a matter of just two minutes each!

See the videos at www.bonusportal.org/brussels2015

Other BONUS meetings and events during 1–2 December 2015, Brussels

In addition, the first day of meetings was completed by the BONUS evening school that took place in the Le Plaza Hotel with a focus on the topic of measuring impact of science with the keynote delivered by Ramona Samson, Senior Policy Analyst, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission. The discussion was continued during a buffet networking

dinner attended by the 70 evening school participants.

The day 2 began with the open triple meeting session which was attended by a total of close to 70 BONUS Steering Committee members, the Project Coordinators and Advisory Board members. The Steering Committee Chair Mats Svensson led the discussions on the future plans of BONUS, collaboration with the Baltic Sea Region Programme, BONUS projects' clustering plans as well as on the topic of demonstrating impact. A BONUS introductory video (view at www.bonusportal. org/brussels2015) was launched and the BONUS

continuation plan introduced based on the outline document submitted to the European Commission in the previous month.

MS

TUUKKA TROBERG

Tuesday, 1 December 2015, 09:00–12:00 Kick-off conference of BONUS sustainable ecosystem services projects,

BO NUS IN BR IEF M AY 2016 |

7

Events calendar

New BONUS publications out

18–19 May 2016

European Maritime Day 2016, Turku, Finland

4–7 July 2016

BONUS shipping cluster outreach campaign at Almedalensveckan, Sweden

4–7 September, 2016

ECSA Conference 2016, Bremen, Germany

19–23 September 2016

ICES Annual Science Conference 2016, Riga, Latvia

7–10 November 2016

North Sea Open Science Conference, Ostend, Belgium

8–9 November 2016

EUSBRS 7th Annual Forum, Stockholm, Sweden

6–8 December 2016

Marine Science Communication Conference CommOCEAN 2016, Bruges-Ostend, Belgium

B

ONUS publication no 15 ‘Towards sustainable blue growth – Outline of the joint Baltic Sea and the North Sea research and innovation programme 2018-2023’ was published as an online publication in February 2016. The outline document was first submitted to the European Commission on 11 November 2015. The publication consists of two parts, namely A: Objectives and implementation and B: Similarities and contrasts between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The ‘BONUS annual review 2015’ sums up its third full year of implementation from 1 January until 31 December 2015. During the year eight

sustainable ecosystem services projects began their implementation; BONUS co-organised the first ever policy day at the tenth Baltic Sea Science Congress that was held during the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union; hosted a visit

by Carlos Moedas, the Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation; and submitted a proposal for the successor programme of BONUS for the European Commission's consideration under Horizon 2020. 

Review 2015

To read and download BONUS publications, visit www.bonusportal. org/publications. For hard copies, email bonus@bonuseeig.fi LE

FOR EUROPEAN MARITIME DAY 2016 VISITORS: Join us for a workshop 'Eco-innovation for safer and healthier Baltic Sea' in MOVE2 at 10:45, 18 May 2016!

BONUS innovations projects will demonstrate tangible results ranging from assessment on sunken wrecks’ environmental risks to early warning systems of disaster prevention. Speakers include six BONUS innovation projects: ANCHOR, ESABALT, FERRYSCOPE, GEOILWATCH, SWERA and ZEB.

ISTOCK

Find us also at BONUS projects’ exhibition at the Networking Village, stand number 23. Welcome!

BONUS members Denmark • Innovation Fund Denmark Estonia • Estonian Research Council Finland • FiRD Coop / Academy of Finland

Lithuania • Research Council of Lithuania representing Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia

Germany • Forschungszentrum Jülich Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH representing Federal Ministry of Education and Research Latvia • Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia / State Education Development Agency

Poland • National Centre for Research and Development representing Ministry for Science and Higher Education

Sweden • Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management • Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning FORMAS • Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

BONUS is funded jointly from the national research funding institutions in the eight EU member states around the Baltic Sea and the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration by a total of EUR 100 million for the years 2011–2017.