In view of the 'European Maritime Day in My Country 2019' initiative, Malta Marittima teamed up with the Physical Oceanography Research Group, University of Malta, and organised a one day workshop.  The theme of this national event was entitled "Safeguarding the Marine Environment Together: Bridging Conservation and Stakeholder Uses in the NE Marine Protected Areas". The workshop, which was very well attended, aimed to empower stakeholders in the appraisal of existing conflicts between conservation objectives and the effects of human activities carried out within the North-East Marine Protected Area in the Maltese Islands. The programme comprised a practical marine spatial planning exercise to investigate possible solutions to meet conservation objectives without disrupting essential economic activities. It was designed to network the stakeholders, and build dialogue and awareness on common issues. The aim of the workshop was to involve local communities for active participation in decision making and in finding solutions to match development with environmental conservation; re-assessing economic activities to reduce conflicts for the same space and resources; identifying new management measures to mitigate the impacts of human activities on coastal habitats, and developing common, coordinated and feasible actions to fulfil national and EU goals, directives and legislation. 

Malta Marittima Agency was invited to attend the Committee of the Regions Conference held in Gozo.  The conference was attended by over 100 delegates and Malta Marittima actively participated in this Conference and moderated one of the sessions during the event.  Malta is among the top five EU member states in which the blue economy most contributes to its GDP (4.7 per cent).  The Maltese blue economy employs around 10,400 people and generates €406 million in gross value added.  During the conference members adopted various draft opinions, including 'Cross-border dimension in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)', 'A new European agenda to speed up the development of maritime industries' and 'Towards a comprehensive European Union framework on endocrine disruptors'.  

Malta Marittima Agency has been entrusted to facilitate the implementation of the Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE).  CISE will integrate existing surveillance systems and networks and give all concerned authorities access to the information they need for their missions at sea.  It will also make different systems interoperable so that data and other information can be exchanged easily through the use of modern technologies. In this regard, Malta Marittima has set up the 'CISE Cluster' working group which is composed of representatives emanating from all respective national authorities.  The scope of this working group is to bring all stakeholders together and work towards the identification of systems adopted by each entity and sharing of its information through a common platform. During May 2019, Malta Marittima organised a stakeholders' workshop during which members of the working group provided information on the systems managed and operated by their respective entity.  Participating in this workshop were representatives of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) from the European Commission.

The call for the Maritime Seeds Awards 2019 (MARSA) is now open 

The Maritime Seed Award (MarSA) is a joint initiative between the Malta Marittima Agency (MMA) and the University of Malta supported by the TAKEOFF Business Incubator, Knowledge Transfer Office and the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Business Incubation (CEBI) at the University of Malta.

The fourth call of this programme aims to help move promising ideas from the Maritime Field forward toward commercialization.  To date, ten projects have received funding through prior programmes. Award funding totaling to €140,000 will help to bring the innovative early-stage idea/technology from lab to life and provides support to researchers and entrepreneurs when they need it most to increase the likelihood of success.

Follow following link for more information: https://takeoff.org.mt/seed-funds/maritime-seed-award-2019/