The Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC (MSFD) gives a formal reporting requirement on assessment, good environmental status, environmental targets, monitoring programmes and programme of measures that should be applied to marine (sub)-regions. MSFD article 19 includes a requirement that data used in initial assessments and stemming from monitoring programmes shall be compliant with Directive 2007/2/EC, Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE).
Irrespective of any specific INSPIRE-related obligations in the MSFD, the INSPIRE Directive requires Member States to share spatial information in support of environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. The INSPIRE Implementing Rules legal acts address, among other aspects, metadata, network services, interoperability of spatial data sets and services, prescribing how this shall be done.
In order to facilitate the implementation of Article 19 of MSFD, the Commission, in collaboration with the European Environment Agency (EEA), and Member States representatives in MSFD working group on Data Information Knowledge Exchange (DIKE), decided to set up a pilot project to address both the MSFD and the INSPIRE requirements. The main trust of this pilot is to help Member States with the implementation of both Directives following a harmonised approach, taking into account other relevant maritime policies activities including the European Marine Observation and Data Network(EMODNet).
The pilot is included in the Commission-driven programme Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA) of DG Informatics, as part of ISA Action 2.13 European Union Location Framework.
The pilot will run from September 2014 for a period of 16 months. A detailed description is provided in the Project Charter for the Marine pilot publicly available in the CIRCABC folder of the 10th MSFD WG DIKE meeting:
https://circabc.europa.eu/w/browse/bc33dff1-0f8c-467a-8382-7724c5f79d45
The pilot is managed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission and supported by a Steering Board consisting of the relevant Commission Services and the EEA.
The pilot requires the participation of representatives of organizations dealing with the MSFD implementation, as well as experts from INSPIRE, the EMODNet, and the EEA. This document is a call for expression of interest to participate in the work foreseen in the pilot.
This call has two aims:
1. To invite experts that are acquainted with – or have responsibilities for – MSFD-related data management and reporting obligations, to register as a Horizon 2020 expert so that they may be selected to contribute to the marine pilot under the conditions laid down for Horizon 2020 experts; and
2. To invite organizations that have a role in the MSFD data flows and reporting to express their interest to participate in the pilot, to use the required data and to make the necessary transformation(s) to be in line with INSPIRE.
The full text of the call is available at http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/documents/INSPIRE_/Call_INSPIRE_Marine_Pilot_20141003.pdf