The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands will supervise the implementation and management of six Joint Atlantic Actions within the framework of the AANChOR project, which objective is to promote the implementation of the South Atlantic Research and Innovation Flagship initiative and the Belém Statement (BS), signed by the EU, Brazil and South Africa in 2017 and adhered by Argentine and Cape Verde, to upscale research and innovation cooperation within the Atlantic basin, from Antarctica to the Arctic.
The six Joint Atlantic Actions are related to aquaculture, biotechnology, access to open data based on “FAIR” principles, an Atlantic network of research infrastructures, education, and technical and scientific training. The next steps for their implementation have been discussed during the third AANChOR Steering Committee, in which PLOCAN participated as project partner and leader of the task dedicated to the administration of the initial “seed funds” for the execution of Joint Actions. The event was celebrated online from South Africa, giving continuity to their presentation during the Atlantic Ocean Research Forum based on the decisions adopted by the management committee of the signatory countries of the Declaration of Belém.
AANChOR will be responsible for launching a multi-stakeholder platform to identify collaborative activities, building on national and international ongoing initiatives such as the All Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance and addressing activities aimed at reinforcing capacity building, promoting academia-industry knowledge transfer for an enhanced ocean innovation, developing common standards, enhancing citizen awareness and ocean literacy and converging and aligning R&I infrastructure initiatives.
The Joint Atlantic Actions include an All-Atlantic Ocean Capacity Development and Training Platform to jointly co-design a sustainable multidisciplinary All-Atlantic technical and scientific training and capacity building programme. Furthermore, an All Atlantic Knowledge Transfer Network for Aquaculture and another related to Biotechnology, which objective is to convene key players related to Aquaculture/Biotechnology and ocean innovation in the Atlantic around the practice of strengthening knowledge transfer between industry and academia, will be developed.
The six Joint Actions are completed by an unique transatlantic data platform for the natural-, social-, and humanistic-scientific data; an All-Atlantic Blue Schools Network through an educational programme targeted at schools from the countries of the Atlantic region and co-developed in close collaboration with the local educational community; and an All-Atlantic marine research infrastructure network (AA-MARINET) which is aimed at the creation of a long-term collaboration framework to promote and facilitate the convergence and the alignment of Research and Innovation infrastructure initiatives.
