Saturday 28 September 2013

First Irish Stakeholder Consultation Takes Place on Marine Food

Stakeholders and 'influencers' in the Irish marine food sector gathered in the beautiful surroundings of the Ballymaloe Country House Hotel, Co. Cork between the 18th and 20th September to discuss the barriers and solutions to a sustainable marine food industry for Ireland.

The process used to elicit, discuss and develop ideas throughout the workshop is known as 'Collective Intelligence' which has been pioneered by American social researcher Dr. Benjamin Broome and adapted for use in the Sea for Society project by NUI Galway.

Following an introduction by Dr, John Joyce, the meeting facilitator, each delegate was asked to list three significant barriers to the development of a sustainable marine food sector in Ireland. Once those barriers were listed, they were ranked by the group in order of importance and then considered in terms of how each barrier effected the others. Once this matrix was created, the group moved to listing possible solutions to overcoming those barriers and again ranked them in terms of what they considered to be the most important, practical and effective. 

This group process was assisted by Michelle Devaney of NUIG, Niamh Dornan of AquaTT and by Lisa Fitzpatrick of the Marine Institute, who also acted as the meeting Rapporteur.

The results of this workshop will be fed back to the project co-ordinators in Europe and combined with the results of similar exercises in each of the 12 partner countries. This information will then be analysed at NUI Galway by Dr. Christine Domegan and Michelle Devaney and used to inform the next phase of the Sea for Society Project - a pan-European information and outreach campaign on how humankind can live in harmony with the Sea.


The next stakeholder workshop to be held in Ireland will deal with the Sea as 'A Place to Live' and will take place in early November.

Thursday 12 September 2013

First Irish Stakeholder Consultations commence next week

The first Stakeholder consultation event - including invited representatives of the marine food sector, government bodies, and commentators on the marine food industry in Ireland will take place next week in Cork between the 18th and 20th September. Results of the consultation will be fed back to the coordinators and included in the overall analysis of barriers and solutions to a sustainable marine food sector across Europe.