Ερευνητικά Προγράμματα Κύπρου

Call for proposals

"Strengthening regional cooperation in the area of fisheries data collection” - MARE/2016/22

Objectives and description

The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund has published a call for proposals under the "Strengthening regional cooperation in the area of fisheries data collection” - MARE/2016/22

Reliable and complete data are central to the well-functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). For this reason, an EU framework for the collection and management of fisheries data was established in 20002 and then reformed in 2008 resulting in the Data Collection Framework (DCF). The DCF establishes a harmonized set of EU rules governing the collection, management and use of biological, environmental, technical, and socioeconomic data on the fisheries, aquaculture and processing sectors. It strives to ensure the availability of data to scientists, so that these data can be used to provide advice to end-users including the Commission.

From 2017 onwards, under their Data Collection Framework Work Plans, Member States shall collect data on the stocks which they fish, assess the quality of these national data sets, and then provide them to end users such as those mentioned above, who in turn carry out stock assessments. In the Mediterranean Sea many stocks assessments are carried out at the GFCM-Geographical Statistical Areas (GSAs) level, so that only the data of a single Member State are used in the assessment.

From 2017 onwards, whether for "national" or "shared" stocks, the data collection will be planned nationally (under a Work Plan), the data will be collected at a national level, and quality assessment of the data will be done at a national level. For shared stocks, the national data sets will then be combined to carry out scientific assessments at the stock level.

Building on the first call for proposals launched in 2014, this call for proposals aims to further support projects to enable Member States to build up experience in new areas of:

· regional (in case of biological data) cooperation;

· EU wide (in case of socio economic data) cooperation along the possible evolutions set out above.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to provide Member States with the tools to accomplish regional/EU coordination but not to finance on a recurrent basis such activities.

The grants are meant to help each region (in the case of biological data collection) proceed with the realization of the regional sampling plan in the specific Regional Coordination Meetings’ aspects that need to be finalised.

Eligible activities

The regions and topics covered by this call for proposals are the following:

· Biological data: the Baltic Sea, the North Sea & Eastern Arctic, the North Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean & Black Sea, as well as fisheries in external waters (Large pelagic fisheries and long distance fisheries on demersal and small pelagic stocks);

· Socio-economic and environmental data collection on fisheries, aquaculture and processing industry for all EU regions and fisheries.

One of the big achievements of the Data Collection Framework over the past years has been the strengthening of Regional coordination and co-operation. In line with strengthened provisions on regionalisation contained in the Common Fisheries Policy Basic Regulation, Member States have expressed the wish, both in Regional Coordination Meetings and further to Stakeholder consultations, to provide regions with a greater scope in tasks regarding planning and implementing data collection at a regional level.

This could be achieved through the establishment of Regional Coordination Groups (RCGs) that would increase cooperation between Member States over and above the current annual RCMs, in which Member States consider already established national programmes/ work plans and coordinate their implementation.

Such RCGs could play a broader role than the current RCMs in coordinating regional aspects of data collection, with activities such as:

· Identifying what data should be collected at regional level. In addition to core data that is defined in the new EU MAP, Member States in RCGs would agree on additional data that should be collected for their region, in consultation with end users of the data.

· Planning and coordinating how data should be collected, processed and managed at regional level. Member States in RCGs would coordinate the preparation of Work Plans on a regional level (this applies essentially to biological data) and then allocating tasks and effort between Member States. Member States in RCGs should also agree on the methodologies that should be followed to ensure that coherent regional data sets, of sufficient quality for end user needs, can be produced.

· Evaluating the quality of biological data sets at the regional level and sharing this quality evaluation with end users. This may require the development of methodologies and quality checks for regional data sets.

· When end users express needs for new data to be collected (not falling under the EU MAP), Member States in RCGs may already start to trial the collection of certain variables in a coordinated manner.

Eligible participants - Minimum conditions

The following applicants of Member States are eligible:

· Public authorities (national, regional, local);

· Research centres;

· Universities;

· Educational institutions;

· Non-profit organisation (private or public).

Only an application of a consortium of partners established in several Member States of the same marine region will be considered eligible:

· For biological data collection, the consortium must include at least three Member States fishing in one, and the same, of the following regions:

Baltic Sea, North Sea & Eastern Artic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean & Black Sea, Large pelagic fisheries on highly migratory species, Long distance fisheries beyond EU waters.

· For economic data collection, the consortium must include at least six Member States showing a balanced representation of EU countries (i.e. spanning all sea basins).

Applications should demonstrate the cross-border nature of the proposed project, inter alia through the proposed Partnership composition and the selected region, which must be characterised by multiple and cross-border activities (existing or potential).

The activities under these projects may not be included in the EU co- Maritime and financed activities covered by a member States' Operational Programme under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.

Activities under these projects should go beyond the activities covered by the national work plans for data collection for 2017-2019 of the Member States.

Budget and duration

The total budget earmarked for the co-financing of the projects is estimated at 2,000,000 ?.

The indicative maximum grant per project will be 500,000 EUR.

This call for proposals may cover 4-7 grants, depending on cooperation between sea basins. Cooperation between adjacent sea basins is strongly encouraged. The grants cannot take place in the same region for the same subject.

Maximum rate of co-financing is 90%.

The duration of the project should not exceed 15 months.

Deadline of proposals' submission

The deadline for submission is 7 July 2017.

Further information

Please find attached the call documents.

All questions related to the call may be sent by electronic means (e-mail) to the functional mailbox: MARE-2016-22@ec.europa.eu, indicating the call reference MARE/2016/22 and the subject title "Strengthening regional cooperation in the area of fisheries data collection".

More information: http://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/call-proposals-mare201622_en

Kind regards,

Flora

Flora Stavropoulou
Intern

European Office of Cyprus

Rue du Luxembourg 3, 2nd floor

B-1000, Brussels

Tel/Fax: +32 (0) 2 280 22 85

E-mail: eoc.brussels2@ucy.ac.cy

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).