Cattrijsse, A.

Mertens, T.

Seys, J.

Open Marine Archive

Ocean philanthropy to feed marine scientific knowledge
Seysjan, Tina Mertens and André Cattrijsse
Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)
InnovOcean site, Wandelaarkaai 7, B-8400 Oostende 
E-mail: ian.sevs@vliz.be
In 2013 the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ) explored the possibilities to  initiate a philanthropy 
initiative. In th is way, VLIZ wants to  o ffer people and companies with a passion fo r the sea the 
opportun ity  to  contribute to a sustainable and healthy sea. From 2014 onwards, VLIZ w ill be using 
its membership fees and welcomes donations, bequests and all sorts o f financial contributions, 
which w ill be spent to  expand and develop the scientific knowledge regarding coastal and marine 
areas.
Eligible projects should contribute to  the scientific knowledge and knowledge building o f coastal 
and marine areas anywhere in the world and should bear a neutral, objective message. The initiative 
also needs to push forward a more sustainable use o f our seas and ocean by generating new 
scientific knowledge and data measurements. For instance, projects can be elaborated to  collect 
scientific data concerning the condition o f the sea as well as the setup and development o f specific 
monitoring campaigns and networks. A ll th is is done not only in close collaboration w ith scientists 
but w ith the general public as well. Such citizen science initiatives result in a significant increase in 
public support.
Depending on the philanthropy budget, the available funds w ill be used fo r projects belonging to 
one o f the three main categories:
(1) Category 1 - Sea observation networks (‘citizen science’);
(2) Category 2 - Education and long-term data sets;
(3) Category 3 - Development o f new equipment.
VLIZ identified several possible projects, being:
(1) ‘SeaW atch-B’, a Belgian beach obse rva tion  ne tw o rk  is designed to generate an accessible but 
sustained long-term m onitoring network fo r the Belgian coastal waters, based on a network o f 
volunteers supervised by experts.
(2) ‘S c ience -sh ip ’ actively involves pleasure craft in maritime surveillance. By providing them with 
targeted tra in ing and measuring equipm ent they can generate a m ultip lication o f in s itu  data. 
Optionally, connection can be found w ith running initiatives such as the ‘Ocean Sampling Day’ 
initiative h ttp ://w w w .m icrob3.eu /osd .
(3) ‘Build yo u r own sea ro b o t’ enables young people, w ith technological interest, in developing 
new sea-measuring equipment.
More inform ation can be found at: h ttp ://w w w .v liz .be /en /vour-con tribu tion .
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Ocean philanthropy to feed marine scientific knowledge

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