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.
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