ANNUAL REPORT - Marine Institute Open Access Repository

Marine Institute Annual Report 2008
Strategic Planning & Development Services
Director’s Statement
2008 saw significant achievements by SPDS
across its three major programmes.
The Information Services & Development
Group delivered a number of new
systems/initiatives, including support for
evaluation of ePMDS and payroll systems;
commissioning of a new high performance
computing environment and server room
with advanced heat recycling; implementing
the Oceanographic Model Data Delivery System for OSS and the Database
on Oceanography and Marine Ecosystems (DOME) reporting for MEFS to
help meet OSPAR requirements. In October Minister Power launched the
Irish Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE) project which is a web based catalogue
providing easy access to marine data held by various agencies including
DCENR (GSI and PAD), EPA, UCC and the Marine Institute. ISDE has since
been awarded Ireland’s cross agency e-Government award.
The International Co-operation Programme team continued to work
closely with Irish researchers around the country. At the close of the
year, Irish marine researchers were participating in 22 FP7 (grant-aid €9
million) and 15 INTERREG-IV Projects (grant-aid €4.5 million) (Appendix
2). To support Irish researchers, seminars and workshops were held in 10
venues around the country in 2008 (Appendix 4).
2008 saw significant progress being made on the implementation of the
Sea Change Strategy. Building upon the 2007 investment commitments
by the Marine Institute of €43.8m via NDP funds, 2008 saw additional
commitments of just under €6.2m. The total investment in Sea Change
over the first two years of its implementation totals approximately
€100m (50% of which comes from Marine Institute NDP funds, 36%
from other national funding bodies and 14% from international funding.)
In addition to significant project management activities, members of the
Sea Change Management Unit progressed a number of new initiatives.
Highlights include an innovation initiative in the seaweed sector which
resulted in the announcement by Enterprise Ireland of a €2m research
fund as part of its Industry-Led Research Programme.
The Sea Change team were also engaged directly in developmental
aspects of 3 major new national programmes in Marine Biotechnology,
Advanced Technology Research and Ocean Energy:
› The National Marine Biosdiscovery programme led by NUIG, UCC and
Queens University Belfast is creating core research capabilities in
natural products chemistry, chemogenomics and bioinformatics
and the isolation and identification of novel chemical compounds
or proteins for use by the biopharma sector and the medical device
industry (e.g. adhesives, biofilms and sensors). In 2008 the Marine
Institute, in partnership with the lead Institutions, established a fully
equipped National Marine Biodiscovery Laboratory and hosted the 1st
National Marine Biodiscovery Workshop.
› The Marine Institute in collaboration with the EPA has supported
sustained activity over the period 2005-2008 that has helped to build
a multi-disciplinary, industry-oriented research capability in the area
of sensors and environmental technologies. This partnership has now
been strengthened by the active engagement of Enterprise Ireland and
IDA with the Marine Institute leading the development of a flagship interagency
research, test and demonstration platform for communications
and sensor /environmental technologies to be deployed in Galway Bay.
Smartbay is already attracting the interest of major multinationals
and a number of industry partnerships have developed. As a direct
result of engagement with Marine Institute researchers and of the
SmartBay Initiative, IBM decided to locate its European Advanced Water
Management Centre of Excellence in Ireland (announced by Minister
for Finance on June 16th 2008). Other activity in the SmartBay project
includes an alliance between Intel and Irish Broadband working on the
testing of the feasibility of Wimax over the sea.
› Since January 2008, the pace of development of Ocean Energy has
increased significantly following the announcement by DCENR of a
€26million package of incentives for the sector. This includes the
establishment of a dedicated Ocean Energy Development Unit in SEI
supported by the Marine Institute, headed up by former SPDS colleague.
Throughout 2008, SPDS staff continued to work in partnership with
SEI to set up the OEDU, which culminated in a formal Service Level
Agreement between both agencies. The agreement provides for ongoing
technical support to be provided by the Marine Institute to support
ocean energy developers in the use of the quarter scale test site off
Spiddal and technical services related to the commissioning of an
offshore grid connected text site at Belmullet in Mayo.
Ms. Yvonne Shields
Director: Strategic Planning and Development Services
Information Services and Development (IS&D)
During 2008, IS&D continued to provide day-to-day technical support
across the Institute (servicing in excess of 3,400 requests for support
covering technical, applications and data management queries), whilst
also servicing in excess of 300 data requests from external parties.
In addition to these support services, IS&D were involved in excess of
50 projects (focusing on Strategic Business and Technical Support,
Operational and Marine Institute Service Group Support Projects).
Highlights include:
› Establishment of the High Performance Computing Environment (HPC);
› A new environmentally controlled server room;
› Upgrading of OSPAR Database of Oceanographic and Marine
Ecosystems (DOME) reporting;
› The Oceanographic Model Data Delivery System;
› Development of new systems for ePMDS and payroll;
› The inclusion of data from new oceanographic sensors in Marine
Institute information systems;
› In partnership with the DCENR, including the GSI and PAD, the launch
of the Irish Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE) which allows the discovery
of marine data held by various agencies; and
› Significant progress in the Integrated Data Repositories project aimed
at putting in place processes to promote better management of
research data.
IS&D also provided support and guidance related to the Sea Change
Knowledge & Information Management Programme.
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