Time for stakeholder feedback – BlueBioClimate halfway through

The third BlueBioClimate seminar was organized in Hirtshals in May 2025 marking that the Interreg project is halfway through, and now getting concrete about how to contribute to tools development that address management needs. On top of the agenda, feedback from stakeholders gathered at a dialogue meeting in February was presented – clear communication is a key wish.

BBC seminar Hirtshals 25 foto af Anne Trap-Lind — BlueNioClimate seminar in Hirtshals, May 2025, participants from Norway, Sweden and Denmark

Tuesday 17 June 2025

Anne Trap-Lind

When project leader Jakob Hemmer Hansen from DTU Aqua introduced the program for the seminar around the Interreg project BlueBiClimate (BBC), feedback from stakeholders was top of mind this time, where BlueBioClimate has been going on for 1½ years, and results from the many different subprojects within the project are materializing and proceeding to next step:

Being transformed into tools that can be used by environmental and biodiversity managers and decision makers to select the right approaches to nature restoration and conservation in Oeresund, Kattegat and Skagerrak.

“I think this was a very productive meeting with high value for our project. It was very good to get some concrete feedback from end-users. The stakeholders pointed to a number of areas, where our project could contribute to their work,” says project leader from DTU Aqua Jakob Hemmer-Hansen.

Stakeholders: tools to prioritize and communication, communication, communication

One of the crucial takeaways from the meeting with stakeholders in February according to the presentation at the seminar, was the wish for clear communication about how to understand and make use of the results from the various research within the project.

“We don’t have time for reading long complicated papers – keep it short and simple!”, the group of stakeholders underlined.

The themes being addressed within the BlueBioClimate are 1. Prioritization and spatial planning, 2. Restoration, land and coastal protection and 3. Invasive, alien and new species.

All relevant approaches to managing and restoring marine habitats along the coasts of the Oeresund, Kattegat and Skagerrak coasts of, and the stakeholders that participated in the BBC workshop were 14 participants from all involved regions in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Before the workshop, the BBC team sent out a short questionnaire for stakeholders to give feedback on what they need to be able to make value and use of the project’s results.

BlueBlioClimate seminar in Hirtshals 2025, photo by Anne Trap-Lind — BlueBioClimate seminar i Hirtshals, photo by Anne Trap-Lind

Key biodiversity indicators

In addition to clear communication, the keywords from stakeholders included the need for tools to prioritize – which is exactly the goal of BlueBioClimate – the need for planning and timeline manuals, best practices as well as a call for collaboration, networks, increased international collaboration.

"Now, we need to get concrete and work on how we can go from the scientific insights and results to developing tools and advice for the managers,” says Jakob Hemmer-Hansen.

The workshop offered the possibility to discuss the very biodiversity/climate topics like the need to know about new species/invasive species, how to best choose source populations in restoration, and finding the balance between protection and exploitation.

At the meeting, project participants also spend time identifying key national authorities responsible for reporting internally agreed biodiversity indicators – an area where BlueBioClimate could also contribute in the future. How can the project deliver biodiversity/vulnerability maps? Just one example of many new results and discussions coming out of the BlueBioClimate project.

How might we?

Another new element this time in Hirtshals was a workshop inspired by SPRINT – a brainstorming method that challenges people to let go of reservations and realistic thinking and simply complete the question: How might we? by thinking up wishes related to the project like:

How might we make a relevant impact?

How might we inform the general public about not to harm marine environment?

How might we integrate citizen science into marine management?

Just three out of several posters of questions related to marine nature restoration that the different groups came up with. Then the discussion moved into prioritizing by colours what we found the most important questions to answer. And then it was time to discuss possible solutions!

A very inspiring and fruitful workshop judging from the focus and lively engagement going on in the different groups.

Coastal nature restoration to meet the challenges of climate change

BlueBioClimate is concerned with biodiversity loss and habitat degradation along the Nordic coasts in the light of climate change – the overarching aim of BlueBioClimate is to enable environmental managers to effectively protect and restore marine biodiversity in a future impacted by climate change, presuming that robust habitats are themselves the best protection against climate change.

“The different tasks and subprojects in BlueBioClimate are progressing very well. It is very encouraging to see how the results are materializing,” says Jakob Hemmer-Hansen.

Also the importance of citizen science was underlined in another presentation – a project about oyster hunt: Collect, sort & measure, eat! One of the insights from the event was that most of the organisms the volunteers brought back in their buckets were invasive species.

And this presentation generated a thoughtful statement from the crowd: “Research is everybody’s project!

Halfway through

With this recent seminar BlueBioClimate is halfway through. The third report has just been transmitted to the Interreg secretariat, and Jakob Hemmer-Hansen could announce that the recently received external evaluation report concluded that the project is progressing well and is well aligned with priorities from both Interreg and key stakeholders.

“The report also pointed to areas with potential for improvement, ,” he added, “for example regarding streamlining decision making processes in our project to secure alignment across all project participants towards the main goals of our project.”And so, the work within the BlueBioClimate continues and is now getting more concrete with respect to addressing key stakeholder needs.

Next and fourth seminar is planned for October in Strömstad, Sweden, with the University of Gothenburg as local hosts.

Contact

Jakob Hemmer-Hansen Senior Researcher National Institute of Aquatic Resources Phone: +45 35883147 Mobile: +45 93511088 jhh@aqua.dtu.dk