Consisting of six international students of the Marine Environment and Ocean Management Programme and university professor Larry Hildebrand, the group heard about ICES interest in making further strides into academia and the procedure of creating and providing advice.
Building on collaboration with the WMU and ahead of the signing of Letter of Agreement, the meeting gave the students a look across the ICES spectrum from scientific structure to advice and data as well as an insight into how advice is wrapped up and delivered to clients. The opportunity was also taken to find out about what the university currently offers in the field of e-learning, a potential new venture for ICES.
Hildebrand, Professor and Chair in Marine Environment Protection at the university, saw the chance for his students to use ICES as a knowledge base.
“I think the strongest area of collaboration is the helping of our students, who are from the shipping and maritime sector, understand how the ocean works, what marine ecosystems are and how they function,” he explained. “The challenge is, because we’re not typically natural scientists, is conveying that knowledge about how ecosystems work, how fish stocks are changing to a non-technical audience. I think it’s the advisory service that does exactly that: interprets the science and communications it in a form to decision-makers. This is highly relevant.”
The meeting will be followed up by an April seminar at the WMU campus in Malmö. Run by ICES Head of Advisory Committee (ACOM) Support and Deputy Head of the Science Programme, it will concentrate on the role of ICES advice as a tool for the science–policy interface, as well as on the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and related scientific research. It will also present the university with a chance to boost awareness of the collaboration through opening the event up to students of other specializations.
Founded by the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1983, the postgraduate maritime university has over 3,300 alumnae from 163 countries and continues to offer Ph.D. and M.Sc. degrees through a spectrum of courses on the likes of maritime law and policy, shipping and port management, and international transport and logistics.