Dr. Schernewski is Head of the Coastal and Marine Management Group at IOW in Germany. He holds a professorship at the University of Klaipeda, Lithuania, and is former President of the Coastal & Marine Union International (EUCC), The Netherlands. His interests lay in the further development of a systems approach framework (SAF) and supporting tools, for example to improve stakeholder participation or to measure the success of management measures using an indicator system. He aims to support marine spatial planning and coastal management practices. Furthermore he has a rooted interest in ecosystem services, particularly the development and application of methods and tools to assess changes in ecosystem goods and service provision of coastal and marine systems. Dovetailing upon this, he is involved with the assessment and implementation of measures that improve the ecological status of coastal waters and support environmental policies, like the Water Framework Directive (WFD), for example the cultivation of different mussel species to improve water quality.
Dr. Buytendijk is a program manager at RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency with a focus on the North Sea. In this context, RVO organizes together with LNV (The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality) the Community of Practice Multi Use, aimed at multi-use of the North Sea. This is also done on behalf of TKIs and Top Sectors Energy, Agriculture & Food and Nature, together with NGOs, research institutions and entrepreneurs, in and on the North Sea.
Dr. Buck is the chair of the ICES Working Group on Open Ocean Aquaculture (WGOOA) as well as the Head of the AWI-Working Group "Marine Aquaculture, Maritime Technologies and ICZM." He holds a professorship for "Applied Marine Biology" at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven and also sits as the honorary president of the German Aquaculture Association. His particular research interests focuses predominantly on the multi-use of offshore wind farms, offshore aquaculture, shellfish and seaweed cultivation, culture techniques and system design, bioremediation and ecological engineering.
Marijn Rabaut is active as an independent international expert in marine developments. Moreover, he is the international marine policy manager of the Blue Cluster of Flanders (Belgium), and he contributes to several projects with a science-business-policy nexus. He takes also the role as MSP-expert and he has been working as a researcher and as policy expert for various institutions and high level representatives. Trained as marine scientist (PhD – Ghent University Belgium), Marijn Rabaut is now creative in providing high-level added value in innovation projects, negotiation processes and policy advice. His work range is broad (from multi-use over coastal defence, ecosystem approach, aquaculture, renewable energy and MSP) which allows him to link issues as climate change, sustainable development, blue technologies and blue growth.
Project Leader Innovation and Knowledge North Sea at the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food
Nathalie has a background in biology and environmental science with degrees from Universität Zurich and Leiden University. She is currently working on the integrated marine and maritime policy for the North Sea and in EU waters. Together with different stakeholders - entrepreneurs, NGOs, researchers, and government -, she is working on an integral approach to realize the societal challenges: e.g. energy- and food production and natural restoration. Therefore she – together with the Dutch Enterprise Agency – set up the community of practice the North Sea. Areas of expertise are project management, interim/change management, facilitating meetings, strategic and communication analysis, law, and natural sciences.