Partnership for Research In Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE)

The UK is currently at the forefront of the Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) sector, with almost 200 MW of installed capacity of wave and tidal stream projects, that are either operational, under construction or in development. Furthermore, the first floating offshore wind farm is being built off the coast of Scotland.

In order to realise the potential of MRE to achieve the targets set by the Government and keep the UK's leading position; the sector needs to address some relevant technical, environmental and interdisciplinary challenges. A coordinated response from different actors at national and regional level is required in order to successfully face these challenges. In an attempt to provide this coordination and with an initial focus on the South west of the UK, the Partnership for Research In Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) was established, bringing together research expertise and access to facilities for MRE developments.

PRIMaRE comprises the Universities of Plymouth, Exeter, Southampton, Bristol and Bath, along with the Marine Biological Association and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Completing the line-up of PRIMaRE is the South West Marine Energy Park and the Wave Hub facilities, acting as conduits between the research community and industry. More recently, PRIMaRE has extended its borders both nationally and internationally by including the Universities of Uppsala, Cardiff and Cranfield as associated partners of PRIMaRE. The core partner institutions have signed up to a partnership agreement to work together on research across the spectrum of MRE and to establish a 'network of excellence' centred in the South of the UK. PRIMaRE has established the annual conference (now in its third year) to showcase the research and provide a forum for discussion with MRE industry and academia, and have organised industry oriented workshops to identify research priorities in order to align research efforts with the requirements of the MRE sector.

With the support of the EPSRC Network Grant, PRIMaRE aims to expand the partnership to a new level, making active and effective contributions to the challenges of the MRE sector. The Network brings together academic effort on MRE challenges, but also given the nascent state of the industry, aims to work closely with supply chain and industry partners, by providing training and a forum for sharing and exchange of ideas and through access to academic expertise and facilities. Unlike the academic focus of doctoral training schemes, the proposed network aspires to a broad sector approach, in which training and research collaborations are promoted both for conventional research and academic staff (i.e., post-docs, researchers, academics, PhD students) and for industry staff (developers, supply chain, test centres, regional government agencies). The proposed network has four main pillars of focus: (i) the annual PRIMaRE conference, expanded to become a key National and International event for the sector; (ii) the Key Challenge Workshops, an industry oriented dynamic and proactive forum to ensure alignment of PRIMaRE research priorities, and to focus on key emerging challenges requiring special attention; (iii) travel grants, which are crucial to ensure knowledge transfer and to promote the required mobility between academia and industry needed to develop new research collaborations nationally and internationally; and (iv) the PRIMaRE summer school, a continuing professional development (CPD) high level programme, providing the mechanism for exchange of knowledge between the research, academia, the novel MRE industry and wider sector.

Regional networks such as The Partnership for Research In Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMaRE) can contribute actively to support the MRE sector to address challenges. The close relationship that regional networks have with local test facilities, government agencies, supply chain, industry, research and academia presents a major advantage enhancing the research actions towards tackling key challenges and generating real impact. This is of special relevance for the UK MRE sector, which has some well-defined regional nodes and a closer engagement of the sector at regional level will benefit primarily these nodes but also the wider national sector.

With the support of the EPSRC Network Grant, PRIMaRE aims to expand the partnership to a new level, making active and effective contributions to the challenges faced by the MRE sector. The Network brings together academic effort on MRE challenges, but also given the nascent state of the industry, aims to work closely with supply chain and industry partners, by providing training and a forum for sharing and exchange of ideas and through access to academic expertise and facilities. The network is novel in having a broad sector approach, in which training and research collaborations are promoted both for academic staff and for industry.

The network grant will help maximise the impact of PRIMaRE by fostering engagement with regional, UK wide and international MRE industry and supply chain. This engagement will lead to increased momentum around the MRE sector which will increase the knowledge exchange between academia to industry. This will help satisfy the training needs and define the technology breakthroughs needed for the sector to achieve sustainability. This will be achieved by: (i) engagement through the PRIMaRE conference; (ii) back-to-back engagement between industry and academia through the workshops; and (iii) increasing knowledge exchange between academia and industry through the summer schools.

The impact of the network members on the knowledge on MRE and offshore wind will be maximised with support of the network grant by providing opportunities for network members to meet and work together and by visiting and bringing key international researchers in order to develop links with world-leading institutions. This will facilitate access to key infrastructures to UK researchers and will foster new collaborations which will lead to the development of new ideas and transfer knowledge from academia to industry. This will be achieved by: (i) direct engagement with network partners and the regional sector; (ii) engagement with academics and wider UK and international sector; and (iii) engagement with key international research centres.

The network grant will contribute to maximise the impact that PRIMaRE has on the society by keeping an active presence on the web and social networks, by delivering leading edge research on MRE and delivering public engagement and outreach activities in order to engage the general public with science and the activities developed by the network partners. This will be achieved by: (i) dissemination, public engagement and outreach; and (ii) direct contact with end users and overall MRE community through the PRIMaRE website, social networks and the PRIMaRE network.