The OceaNET project has come to an end having trained 13 young researchers in the areas of floating offshore wind and wave energies to support the emerging marine renewable energy sector.
The goal of the four-year project, completed on August 31, 2017, was to train science-based young engineers by offering them good technical, economic, environmental and societal background, and a market-oriented approach for the emerging offshore renewable energy market.
In doing so, the network developed a number of cutting-edge research projects, each led by one of the research trainees for 36 months, and hosted by a first-class European research and development institute, university or company, active in the field.
Activities focused on topics such as array design, implementation and O&M for wave and floating offshore wind energy applications. The development of enabling technologies to support the deployment and operation of arrays has been equally addressed, according to WavEC Offshore Renewables, the coordinator of the project.
The hands-on training was complemented with a handful of short-courses on a range of topics relating to the field of offshore renewable energies.
The training program also comprised secondments to selected industrial companies. The trainees were also encouraged to engage in PhD studies, and out of the 13 hired early stage researchers, 10 have enrolled in a PhD, WavEC informed.
OceaNET project, funded under the European Union’s FP7 PEOPLE Programme (Marie Curie Actions), involved a consortium of 10 European partners, with 21 associated partners.