ACCESS-ZMT Workshop - Marine Science Cooperation in South Africa

Cape Town
3 – 6 December 2012

The Applied Center for Climate and Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) and the Centre for
Tropical Marine Ecology (ZMT) will co-host an event in December 2012 to explore a range of
opportunities for developing marine science and related research collaboration in the
coastal and shelf domain on a bilateral and/or multi-lateral basis with their international
partners.

The goal of the workshop is to explore potential collaboration among these and other
international partners in the marine science coastal and shelf related disciplines (as opposed
to Open Ocean). The two regions of focus will be on the South African west coast and the
east coast. The research focus will be on the role of physical processes in driving and
constraining productivity of natural living resources, in particular in the light of varying and
changing environmental conditions and dynamics. The specific aim of this workshop is to
present an exposé of South African research efforts and plans in marine science to a relatively
broad set of potential collaborative partners, to present show-case existing bilateral activities
and to find specific areas of potential future research collaboration on a bi- or multilateral
basis.

Germany and South Africa are celebrating the Year of Science Cooperation among the two
nations and have agreed to conduct several co-operation initiatives that aim to foster local
skills development and innovation, while providing a platform for further joint ventures in
science between the two countries. Germany and South Africa have a significant track record
in collaborative marine research, which continues today. Projects such as the GENUS
programme (West Coast) have provided a platform for a number of collaborative research
programmes among different German and South African partners. In addition, ACCESS along
with several German partners has developed a project focused on the Wild Coast and
surrounds of South Africa, which has a marine science component and which requires
further development.

Norway has several long standing collaborations with South African marine scientists via the
IMR, BCCR and NERSC and has established the Nansen-Tutu centre for Marine
Environmental Research at UCT. BCCR and ACCESS signed a MOU at COP17 in December
2011 and are committed to working with ACCESS to develop more collaboration on a range
of marine science and atmospheric science fronts.

France is a fourth long standing partner in marine science in the Southern African region and
has several resident scientists who are working in South African institutions through the
ICEMASA programme and others. A workshop held in April 2012 has begun the process of
formulating a large international experiment on the Open Ocean and French marine scientist
are active in the fields of marine ecosystem functioning along the west coast and the South
African east coast.

The 4-day international workshop from 3 to 6 December 2012 will take place in Cape Town,
South Africa, (with ACCESS acting as a the local host) and with the aim to discuss and develop
lines of future cooperative research activities among the four international partners
along the South African coast and shelf to align our approach to collaborative research and
seek synergies among the various activities. The outcome of this workshop will be sound
drafts for scientific trans- and inter-disciplinary project proposals that will be accomplished
during a follow-up meeting in early 2013 and submitted to relevant national or international
funding agencies.

The core funding for the workshop has been obtained from the German Ministry for
Education and Research within the German-South African Year of Science initiative, and
South African participants co-funded by ACCESS. International participants in the event will
be required to fund their own participation. All conference venue costs will be covered for
participants with co-funding from ACCESS and the BMBF. The workshop is planned for a
maximum of 60 participants who will be nominated from their institutions. Selection of
participants for the workshop will be conducted by separate processes in each participating
country and selected participants will be required to register at a date following the 2nd
announcement.

For better organization of the workshop we need some basic information from you. Please fill in the form below as soon as possible. Please provide us with a short CV that we can distribute to other participants so that people may have some background on the workshop attendees and their research areas.

REGISTRATION FORM

Oops! We could not locate your form.