Education & Research Group

Note of the meeting of the North Sea Commission Education and Research Group held on 13-14 February 2003 in Groningen

1.  Welcome and introductions
The chairman, Joop Boertjens welcomed everyone to the meeting.  Each participant introduced themselves for the benefit of the new group members.

2. NSC General Assembly

Update from Karen Somerset:
The North Sea Commission General Assembly is due to be held from 18 to 20 June in Cuxhaven, Germany.  The first day will feature the Interreg Directoria, also meetings for the NCS co-ordinators, the Executive Committee and a political meeting. A conference will be held on the morning of the second day on the theme of “Common strategies for sustainable economic development”.  This will be followed in the afternoon by the Study Tours.  This year there will be 7 Study Tours including an extra tour on the subject of wind energy, which has been requested by the German hosts.

The Education & Research Study Tour will include a visit to the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven and a “virtual” presentation of the International University Bremen.

On 20 June the NSC will hold its annual business meeting and elections.  There are optional tours on the afternoon of 20 June and on Saturday 21 June.

Karen Somerset gave group members a General Assembly brochure and invitation letter.

3. Minutes of the last meeting
These were accepted as correct.

4. Matters arising
All matters arising were to be taken as part of later items on the agenda.

5. Update on Interreg IIIB
Update from Karen Somerset:

The Interreg Steering Committee met on 21-22 November, at which 21 projects were considered and 14 agreed to be funded.  At this call 33m € was allocated – the same amount as the whole of Interreg IIC.

The figures were given as:

The next deadline for submission is 3 March, the following one will probably be at the end of September. The next Steering Committee meeting is likely to be towards the end of April.

Action – Ann to make the information on the Interreg priorities available to the group.

6. Update on Projects

i. Lillemor Bjorsell Hedendahl – The project ImprovFlex has been renamed AccessLLL in order to provide less emphasis on education in the headline.  Together with others involved in ICT projects, Lillemor attended a meeting on spatial planning organised by the Interreg Secretariat in Stavanger in January. Workshops included: improving access to ICT; e-Government; the information society and mobility; access to information including knowledge acquisition and distance learning.  14 projects were represented but only one involved education.  Lillemor’s project aims to develop a model for the support needed by students as distance learners. This may turn out to be a seminar or conference rather than a project.  Lillemor was concerned that attendance at Directoria does not reflect education interests, perhaps because education people find it easier to focus on curriculum development rather than spatial planning. The project will be submitted for the September deadline. 

The group felt that spatial planning is an aspect of education which is insufficiently recognised, but where there is potential for involvement in projects. This could be in relation to networking, widening participation both through physical or time-related opportunities, equity and equality of opportunity in accessing resources, etc. The chairman felt that the most notable difficulty was how to get the right people together to make things happen.

ii. Fybe Kruisinga – Fybe reported that Anrita Michel, the project leader, also went to Stavanger, was given opportunity to look at the possibilities for joining in with new projects and how to take forward the participation of Alfa College.  There had been considerable interest from a new German partner.  Ideas are being worked out including the website for supporting SMEs.   The project will submit in March. All education projects appeared to face the same difficulties when filling in parts of the Interreg form relating to the spatial dimension. 

Toine Janssen suggested that project leaders also take a look at Interreg IIIC, which does not require a focus on spatial planning, but relates to networks.

iii. Ann Brown – The NSEP (North Sea Exchange Protocol) project focuses on the creation of regional “pyramids” for SME support which combine to provide a North Sea network. An interactive website underpins the project and links to the SME365.com website. The participants in this project had hoped to have all of the regional pyramids in place before the project began, but this is proving to be difficult.  As a result, it has very recently become necessary to recognise that this work is part of what happens in the project itself, and that some changes will have to be made.  The project will submit for the September deadline. Alec Bickerton referred to some basic budget issues where the main budgets need to rationalise the difficulty in raising match funding in the regions, but focus on the work generated by the regional partners.  Hans Meves felt that with substantial participation in the regions this would become less of a problem. Ann Brown said that the project was initially too ambitious, and now had to take on a simpler and more realistic format.

7. The NSC Education and Research conference 2003 – update

The conference planning group has now met twice, firstly on the second day of the Education & research meeting in November, and then a second meeting took place via teleconferencing.   Ann Brown handed out the report of the teleconference meeting which gave the current state of planning and a proposed programme for the conference.  The NSC will provide 30,000 Danish Kroner (approximately 4,000 €) towards the costs of the conference.  It is normal to charge for participation (recent Environment conference cost to participants was 100 € per day).

Venue
The planning group suggested that, in order to attract political involvement at the conference, it should be hosted either by the region of the chairman (Groningen) or of the vice chairman (Aberdeen).  The vice chairman had already invited the Education & Research Group to visit Aberdeen for its proposed November meeting.  The involvement of both the chairman and the vice-chairman depended on the results of elections to be held in each region during the spring.  The group agreed to decide on the ultimate venue for the conference as soon as possible after the results of these elections were known.  

Action - Joop Boertjens, Ted Harris and Ann Brown to confer after the results of the elections are known. Ann Brown to inform the conference planning group.

Timing
It was agreed that the conference will take place at the same time as the next Education & Research Group meeting.

Theme
Learning from the North Sea - taking forward the outcomes and findings of other North Sea projects through to an education context, for the development of educational resources and new education projects

Programme
This is attached to the notes of the meeting. It can be summarised as:

Day 1 Evening arrival of participants, reception and icebreaker/activity session

Day 2 Welcome and keynote talks, workshops, displays and consultation facilities, groups form to take projects forward, evening conference dinner.

Day 3 Workshops for project groups, feedback with results, final conference session, lunch, Education & Research Group meeting

Keynote talks
It was agreed that a politician should be asked to provide a keynote talk providing some background to the North Sea co-operation, our common heritage, possibilities for economic development, importance of making the North Sea region visible and valued in an educational context.

Workshops
Proposals for workshops had been received from the planning group and some of the other North Sea Commission Thematic groups.

1 Environment group - "the North Sea: a focus for European School Partnerships" (previous project)

2 Business Development Group - Evaluation report of the Interreg IIC project "Regional Development Strategies and their Spatial Implications"

3 Fisheries - A Leonardo project which had developed 5 modules for shell fish farmers

4 Alec Bickerton proposed a workshop entitled "The North Sea Game" and introduced the concept of this proposal to the group.   It is designed to raise awareness of the North Sea as a region, to highlight common threads and the shared heritage of those living around the North Sea. It would develop focused information about each region and provide this through a website where information can be accessed, activity takes place and links are made to other sources. Learning assignments would be provided through web-based links.

The information to be shared will be provided through new collation of data as well as reference to existing sources and is likely to include:

• detailed maps of areas around the North Sea;
• statistics, e.g. population, employment;
• comparative information, e.g. local interests and achievements;
• town and district information, historical etc;
• political systems, European, regional, national, local
• geographic information
• travel and transport information

Alec suggested an annual "Challenge" or game in which schools participate and for which prizes could be awarded.  Schools would be given a CD ROM with details of the game and information needed to participate.

Discussion points
It was suggested that the involvement of students in the lead up to the conference, and in the conference itself, would be a welcome feature.  Alec has offered some of his students to be available at the conference if it is to go ahead in Aberdeen.

It was thought that there should be more interest generated for the programme on Day 3 through a more structured preparatory session held towards the end of Day 2. This would provide open spaces where details of proposed projects could be displayed and participants invited to sign up. Working groups would then be formed to meet on Day 3.   These should then focus on taking the outcomes of the workshop content further forward to some concrete products.   The end of the morning of Day 3 should then provide a market place to publicise the new products at whatever stage they have reached at the end of the working session.

It was also suggested that the title of the conference should not be "Learning from the North Sea", but something more spectacular.  It must look good and be attractive to a potential audience.

Actions agreed

1 Ann to convene another meeting (probably videoconference or teleconference) of the planning group.

2 Planning group to review the programme using the ideas put forward at this meeting and to take forward the practical arrangements.

3 A flyer to be produced to be distributed in May

4 Conference details and registration information to go out in September via email and to be posted on the Education & Research pages of the NSC website.

5 (Later in the meeting it was agreed that the Education & Research group should meet in September to agree the final arrangements for the conference and take forward any outstanding matters.)

8. The Education & Research section of the NSC website

The following points were agreed:

• Conference details and registration form to go in a prominent place on the Education pages

• Projects - this section should give opportunities for partners to be found, project outcomes and lessons learned to be disseminated, ideas for new projects to be posted, and developing and current projects to be publicised.  The details should show if a project is up and running, or if it needs partners, or if it is closed etc.  The format for this section was agreed as:

– heading or title for the project
– contact person and contact information
– brief description of the project
– status - e.g. seeking partners, submitted and awaiting approval, in second year of activity etc.

• Members details - Ann had tried previously to get members details via an electronic response, but this had not been completed by the majority of group members.  A new sheet was handed out for completion at the meeting. Returns from these will be used to provide members details on the website.

• Forum - this is a facility which has been provided on the NSC website in the past for thematic groups, but which has not been used.  It was decided to re-install this facility for the Education & Research group.  It can be used for discussions on new ideas for projects, themes for the group, or matters in progress such as the conference.  It could also be used to consider issues of wider implication such as spatial planning.

Action - Karen to re install the forum for the group.

9. Involving research institutions

The chairman warned that research is too diverse as an area to bring together specialist workers, who have their own networks in any case.  It was felt that the group should concentrate on research areas which are of importance to the North Sea.  The involvement of Professor Pellenbarg during the next day would give an important indication of possibilities in the area of Spatial Sciences.

Group members had links with, or suggested, the following universities:
– University of Kiel;
– University of Sunderland;
– School of Environmental Studies of the University of East Anglia;
– Lowestoft fisheries research institute (CEFAS)
– Technical University Hamburg Harburg.

10. Future work and patterns of meetings

It was agreed that there should be two further meetings this year:

i. 19 September – venue to be confirmed after further discussion between the chairman, vice-chairman and co-ordinator of the group.  This meeting to focus on two issues only, the conference and ideas for research involvement.

ii. 11-12 December – the Education & Research business meeting to take place on the afternoon of the final day of the conference.  This meeting would evaluate the conference and produce a plan for the group's work in 2004. The pattern of meetings would also be an item on the agenda.

Ann Brown
18 March 2003