SEAPLANSPACE

Marine spatial planning instruments for sustainable marine governance. An interregional cooperation project part-funded by the Interreg South Baltic Programme 2014 - 2020. Implementation period: January 2018 - December 2020.

Project summary: Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) is a new type of a sustainable marine governance stipulated by an EU Directive in 2014. MSP is a cornerstone of the EU Blue Growth strategy and EU Integrated Maritime Policy. It requires new skills and new types of knowledge. To date, only two MSP trainings have been organised in the South Baltic Area (SBA)(VASAB and Baltic University Programme in 2013 and Bonus BaltSpace in 2016). However, the attendees were mainly members of maritime administrations and some PhD students, while representatives of entities affected by MSP (local/regional governments, businesses, sectoral agencies, NGOs) were absent. The current project aims to fill this gap. The project aim is to increase the quality of the labour force engaged in MSP dialogue and the number of people who understand the impact and influence of marine governance in their daily work related to blue growth. This will be done by cross-border training and networking according to the jointly prepared SBA training curricula with a focus on national specificities. Therefore, a key target group is professionals at local/municipal administrative levels, from companies and communities and students who plan to work in the field of blue growth stimulation. The project will make a significant contribution to the implementation of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea region (EUSBSR), Europe 2020 and the "Blue Growth" strategy. The project will a) strengthen transnational activities and the skilled labour force in the SBA blue and green economies, b) increase human resource capacities, c) develop the cross-border cooperation capacity of local/regional authorities, universities, businesses and other stakeholders, d) improve cross-border connectivity for a functional blue and green skilled labour force. Finally, the project will increase the employability of more than 300 persons who will acquire attractive, new skills.