On 20 September, the SUBMARINER team joined the demonstration days in Middelgrunden wind farm which included the boat tour to one of the iconic wind farms offshore Copenhagen, and climbed to the nacelle!

Did you know that the sustainable and efficient use of ocean space can be achieved through a combination of different ocean uses both in close proximity, through joint operations, or on the same platform?

Research and Development Center Kiel University of Applied Sciences has a new position open.

Multi-use (MU) has been promoted as a viable approach to the effective planning and mitigation of user-conflicts in the marine realm. Despite several research and pilot projects demonstrating the approach’s feasibility and benefits, commercially viable MU applications remain patchy and few. Further, MU is neither systematically applied nor purposively planned for even in the imminent event of incompatible and conflicting use of marine space. This paper seeks to identify barriers and opportunities for mainstreaming MU based on desktop study and iterative stakeholder consultation. The findings reveal that the MU concept was frequently framed as ‘co-location’ or ‘co-existence’ and aimed toward mitigating conflict among users. Practice was ahead of theory with little attention to synergistic and efficiency aspects. Barriers for MU application include shortcomings in legislation, sectoral thinking, and burdensome administrative procedures. The main opportunity lies in creating a conducive policy environment where MU risks and transaction costs become low and competitive, respectively. Solutions at the sea basin and national level, upon which further MU application can be anchored, are proposed.

The article titled 'Is demonstrating the concept of Multi-Use too soon for the North Sea? Barriers and opportunities from a stakeholder perspective.' in 'Coastal Management' was developed by partners from the MUSES project.

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The new Horizon 2020 project UNITED (Multi-Use offshore platforms demoNstrators for boostIng cost-effecTive and Eco-friendly proDuction in sustainable marine activities) had its Kick-Off meeting in Delft, the Netherlands on 27-29 January 2020. UNITED is gathering 27 partners from across the EU, including the SUBMARINER member, Southern Denmark University.

This innovative project will demonstrate the multi-use concept in a real environment in five locations across the EU (Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Greece). By means of pilot demonstrators the project aims to provide evidence that the development of multi-use platforms or co-location of different activities in a marine and ocean space is a viable approach (economically, socially and environmentally) for European maritime industry and local ecosystems

SUBMARINER is excited to be coordinating the stakeholder communication in this project and lead the development of the multi-use commercialisation roadmap.

UNITED has been co-funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme and will last three and a half years, starting January 1 2020.

For more information about the project and the list of its partners and pilot sites please visit this page.

The conference will engage a wide range of interested stakeholders from the business community, public administrations and academia. The aim is to present the EU-wide Multi-Use Action Plan that addresses a variety of multi-use combinations including offshore wind farms combined with the wave technology or different types of aquaculture, but also some ‘softer’ approaches to multi-use such as underwater cultural heritage in combination with tourism or ‘pescatourism’.