Project Objective

CAREMAR focuses on the mechanisms employed within European universities to deliver innovative high quality Research and Technological Development (RTD) and Research Based Education (RBE) in marine technology and related sciences, and the development of communications and collaborations between Universities and Industry.  CAREMAR will help the academic sector to support the needs of industry in both the short term and the medium to long term and to deliver solutions through mobilising the skills and resources of the entire marine technology academic community. In this respect, CAREMAR attempts to bring academia and industry together at a fundamental and strategic level rather than in a specific technological area, so that strategic planning and processes can be examined in a highly original way to ensure that outputs from academia are clearly aligned to industry needs across a broad spectrum of technological areas.

The CAREMAR project arose from the recognition that whilst there was tremendous latent research potential amongst WEGMT Associates that this had been largely untapped due to a lack of initiatives aimed at harnessing this potential. As a result a need as identified to:

• Develop synergies between European universities in marine technology and related sciences both in joint education schemes and joint research;

• Develop interaction between universities and the European maritime industry in a coherent way through the definition and application of proper mechanisms;

• Map the competences of European Universities in marine technology and related sciences against industry’s need for knowledge and expertise.

• Assess the short and long terms needs of the European maritime industry from the point of view of European universities and respond effectively to their needs through the development and adjustment of academic education and research

• Market the results of European academic research and facilitate their exploitation by the European maritime industry.

In addressing these needs, there will be a series of intended outputs from CAREMAR:

• A thorough examination of current RTD and RBE practices of European universities to identify improvements to the underlying processes, especially where these bring together university consortia in joint programmes or course development to satisfy industry needs.

• A platform for the supply of RTD, which derives from and is initiated or coordinated by the university sector that meets industry needs through research, provision of manpower and knowledge exchange.

• Improved communications and supporting tools between universities, Research organisations and industry for better RTD project development and undertaking.

• A focussed approach using innovative tools for the supply of RTD, especially in the identification and management of expertise and facilities.

• Demonstration through practical means on how this can be achieved.

• Better incorporation of RTD results in educational programmes.

• Dissemination of the results.

• Coordinated efforts with proposers of Integrated Projects (IPs), Networks of Excellence (NoE) and other Coordination Actions (CAs) for effective distribution of best practice.

• Participation in the preparation and presentation of IPs, NOEs and CAs, and proposals within IPs, NOEs and CAs.

• Demonstration of the portability of the proposed solutions to other industry sectors.