Capacity4MSP

Shipping, aquaculture, nature conservation etc. compete for space at sea. Since the 2014 EU Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Directive, the countries around the Baltic Sea have been elaborating national maritime plans which help to make the right decisions for a sustainable use of the sea. Yet, the Baltic Sea needs coordinated management by all countries. In Capacity4MSP, partners of eleven transnational projects cooperate to advance MSP across the entire macro-region (Baltic Blue Growth/ InteGrid/ LINes/ RIM/ SCOPE, as well as Pan Baltic Scope, Land-Sea-Act, SeaPlanSpace, MUSES, BASMATI, BALTSPACE).

Project summary

Why Capacity4MSP?

In the last decade, a significant progress has been made in building cooperation networks and creating a strong policy background for maritime spatial planning (MSP) in the Baltic Sea region. Currently, nearly all countries around the Baltic Sea work on their maritime plans, which makes our region a front-runner in Europe and the world. The challenge, however, remains to harmonise national maritime spatial plans, implement, monitor and to evaluate them.

How it works?

Capacity4MSP creates a practically oriented and interactive collaboration platform for knowledge exchange and an intensified dialogue between MSP practitioners, policy- and decision makers and other stakeholders. Capacity4MSP builds on the results of the current and recently completed MSP projects and ongoing MSP processes in the Baltic Sea region. It increases the visibility and impact of projects and builds up on potential synergies. The platform deepens and widens the gained know-how across various sectors and governance levels by synthesising, amplifying and transferring the project outcomes to new practical solutions.

Projects represented in the platform:

Interreg Baltic Sea Region: Baltic LINes | Baltic RIM | Baltic InteGrid | Baltic Blue Growth | Land-Sea-Act | Blue Platform
Horizon 2020: MUSES
BONUS: BASMATI | BaltSpace
European Maritime and Fisheries Fund: Baltic SCOPE & Pan Baltic Scope
Interreg South Baltic: SeaPlanSpace

details

Budgets

Capacity4MSP
in numbers

1.09

Million

Total
0.73

Million

Erdf
0.15

Million

Eni + Russia
0.00

Million

Norway

Highlights

Outputs

Project Stories

11.05.2021

How water-smart ideas make the Baltic Sea region thrive

From a rich marine life to beautiful vacation places, the Baltic Sea offers numerous resources that can be exploited to boost the economic growth of the region without harming its ecosystem. Interreg Baltic Sea Region funded multiple cooperation projects that have contributed to a sustainable and innovative blue economy. Good and successful examples of smart blue initiatives include ALLIANCE, Baltic Blue Growth, Capacity4MSP and Blue Platform.
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29.03.2021

Cooperation as the key to a climate-neutral Baltic Sea region

A common challenge for the countries in the Baltic Sea region is how to produce green and climate-neutral energy. In fact, as much as 75% of the EU greenhouse gas emissions still come from energy use and production. Cooperation and sharing good practices in Interreg projects, such as LowTEMP, Baltic Integrid and Area 21, can be a game-changer in accelerating the energy transition in the region.
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30.09.2020

Great project pictures that tell great Interreg stories!

More than seventy pictures competed in the Interreg Baltic Sea Region photo competition. Which projects were the best in illustrating transnational cooperation, grasping the essence of a project and its result, and presenting the 30th anniversary of Interreg? Congratulations to the teams of BalticRIM, RESQU2, Baltic Game Industry, EcoDesign Circle and GoSmart BSR!
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06.01.2020

Interview: Exploiting offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea region

The Baltic Sea region has great potential to generate offshore wind energy, but offshore grid development poses a major obstacle. The Interreg project Baltic InteGrid looked into meshed electricity grids, i.e. interconnecting offshore wind farms in order to achieve cost advantages and make more efficient use of maritime space. Thilo Krupp from the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation explains results and experiences from the project.
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15.07.2019

Coherent planning of shipping and offshore energy across borders with Baltic LINes

The Baltic Sea experiences an increasing demand for coherent spatial planning in order to bring shipping routes and offshore renewable energy infrastructure together. Project partners from nine countries worked across borders to tackle the challenge of scarce space available and competing economic interests of the different sectors active in and around the Baltic Sea in the Interreg project Baltic LINes.
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13.03.2018

Helping spatial planners see the cultural heritage of the sea

The Interreg project BalticRIM integrates maritime cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea into maritime spatial plans to safeguard it for the future. Matthias Maluck from the State Archaeological Department of Schleswig-Holstein explains what maritime cultural heritage is and why and how it should be preserved. BalticRIM frames cultural heritage of individual countries in a transnational perspective and thus delivers territorial cohesion.
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20.12.2016

Making legal requirement accessible to establish an environmentally friendly aquaculture in the baltic sea

Establishing environmentally friendly mussel aquaculture requires to follow necessary legal obligations in the EU. The project Baltic Blue Growth is making a concerted effort in explaining these requirements to its projects partners and others who are interested in pushing forward mussel aquaculture in the Baltic Sea.
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