On 16th of June the European Parliament supported the establishment of the Joint Baltic Sea Research and Development Programme, BONUS- 169.
The objective of BONUS- 169 is to integrate the Baltic Sea System Research into a durable cooperative, interdisciplinary, well integrated and focused multinational programme to support the region’s sustainable development. The Programme’s funding is altogether 100 million Euros, with half of the contribution coming from the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme for Research. The programme is now in its strategic phase and is the broadening stakeholder involvement in order to reach the best results in the full utilization of the capacities for research and application of the results.
The programme is currently gathering inputs from relevant stakeholders for the Strategic Research Agenda for BONUS-169, which will form the basis for the future Calls for proposals to be launched within the Programme. For this purpose, a poll has been opened at our website. The Poll is open to everyone – both individuals and representatives of organizations. BONUS is especially interested in receiving feedback from research professionals in academia and sector research institutes, national, regional and local officers and experts in all relevant spheres: agriculture, fisheries, transportation & energy, environment, tourism and recreation, as well as industries having a stake in marine and maritime research. The poll is open until 16th of August 2010.