Abstract
The goal of the Research Landscape Workshop Series is to engage with the marine energy research community (both research and industry) to create an initial UMERC Research Landscape that conceptually represents research in the marine energy sector. This landscape will help avoid duplication, facilitate collaborations and create connections between people and research, as well as help identify areas of potential research, including needs and gaps.
Developing the Research Landscape contributes to UMERC’s three objectives by:
- Increasing awareness of research: creating the landscape will help us understand what research exists, how the researchers interact, and where the gaps exist
- Evaluate and recommend ways to enhance research: each individual will be able to identify their own needs for research (ground-up, not top-down)
- Improve coordination and collaboration: each cluster will include individuals with ties to university, lab, and industry
In order to accomplish these goals, we developed a series of three workshops:
1. Workshop #1 was held on Nov 10th, 2021. During the workshop the UMERC team introduced UMERC, the concept of a research landscape and communicated our goals and plans to the community. 58 people attended the two hour workshop. Presenters included:
- Samantha Quinn - POET/UMERC - Samantha provided an overview of the UMERC program and the goal of the workshop.
- Shana Hirsch - University of Washington/UMERC - Shana gave an overview of human centered design and how we would be running the follow-up workshops.
- Tim Ramsey - DOE - Tim provided an overview of why DOE wanted a program such as UMERC created.
- Henry Jeffrey - University of Edinburgh - provided details about similar programs that have been formed in the UK and Europe.
2. Workshop #2 consisted of three identical workshops to accommodate attendee availability and facilitate small group discussion. These workshops were entitled: Collaborating to Create a Marine Energy Research Landscape and the purpose was to engage the research community and elicit their expertise in refining a preliminary research landscape. Workshop #2 was attended by about 75 people between the three dates and times. These attendees were a mixture of industry, lab and university researchers, with the majority of attendees being from
universities. The workshops were each roughly 1 hr 45 mins each in length and were held Nov 30, Dec 1, and Dec 2. These workshops are the topic of this report.
3. Workshop #3 is tentatively scheduled for February 23rd, 2022. At this workshop, we plan to present our refined, “Community-Driven Marine Energy Research Landscape.”