BlueBRIDGE aims to deliver tailor made data management services to different communities (aquaculture, ecosystem approach to fisheries and education) and stakeholders (international organisations, research centres, enterprises, etc).

What are the challenges faced by these communities in the field of data management? Is there a demand for the services designed by BlueBRIDGE? Are there any gaps in the market of data management services for the marine and aquaculture sector that BlueBRIDGE can fill? Can the BlueBRIDGE innovative technologies support education? Can research support businesses?

We have asked these questions to the members of the French Business and Sea Innovation Cluster, the Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique, through an online survey.

Over 200 responses have been collected and today we would like to share the results with you!

Respondents belong to different stakeholder groups namely universities and research institutes, environmental consulting companies, private companies (including SMEs), professional and intergovernmental organisations, policy makers and associations.

The Protected Area Impact Maps Production VRE, that is a VRE to support the efficient and effective production of maps of vegetation types and human impacts on them to enable ecosystem degradation analysis, has been selected as the most promising and interesting VREs for the respondents.

And what about private companies, including SMEs?

Over 60 private companies belonging to the fisheries, aquaculture and environment sector participated to the survey confirming that the Protected Area Impact Maps Production VRE and the Strategic Investments Analysis Dashboard that BlueBRIDGE is developing for aquafarming companies, are the most interesting services. In addition the survey clearly reveals that the major challenge that they are facing today is related to Data collection and management. All the companies who participated to the survey are invited to attend the upcoming BlueBRIDGE workshop that will be held in Brest during the SeaTechWeek (10-14 October 2016) to discuss how BlueBRIDGE can support them to address this challenge.

Are VREs also for education?

The 40 research institutes and universities which took part to the survey recognized the scientific training as the most added value support that they can have from BlueBRIDGE, as shown in picture below.

These are few of the main findings included in the Survey Report. 

Download the report and discover the results (also available on Zenodo)