Final workshop

• Author: CETMAR, COGEA, Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (European Commission), POSEIDON, Seascape Belgium, Universidade de Vigo
• Pages: 104-105

Study on the Economic Impact of MSP

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5 Final workshop

Task 5 of the project requi red organising a Closing Workshop in Brussels and setting

up a peer review process. The overarching objective was to assess and validate the

preliminary results of the study, with a special focus on the five case studies, which

sought to quantify the economic benefits derived from the implementation of MSP.

External peer-review is a well-established method to increase the quality of any piece

of w riting, and so Task 5 plays an important role in ensuring that the results of the

study are presented in accordance with the hig hest academic stan dards. Therefore,

the workshop and the peer review were organi sed, as required in the Tender

Specifications for this Study, so to maximise inputs that could be relevant to the

project.

The workshop took place at Hotel Bloom in Brussels o n 29 October 2019, towards the

end of the project. The morning session consisted of a presentation of the Study

results by the project partners, followed by a discussion with economists, internati onal

experts and stakeholders. The afternoon session was dedicated to interactive sessions

in “world café” format to allow for maximum input and exchange of ideas.

The full workshop report is available as Annex II to this Final Report. It is

recommended to look at it to fully understand how the report changed further to the

peer-review process.

5.1 Peer-review process

The peer-review process started a few months before the Workshop. Dr K aryn

Morrissey, from the University of Exeter (UK) , took up the role of Chairperson,

supported by the experts of the Consortium. Twelve experts were sel ected to review

the deliverables produced over the course of the Study. The list of experts was

established in close collaboration with the Contracting Authority and was approved by

the Steering Group.

Bringing together a panel of independent experts was important not only t o evaluate

and validate the preliminary results of the Study, but al so to make sure that any

possible gaps or shortcomings as well as potentially relevant missing papers, reports,

result interpretation, discussion or other kind of information that was not taken into

account in the study were identified.

To facilitate the discussions during the workshop, the background material was

distributed to 12 experts (most of whom with an economic background) plus the

Chairperson one month in advance of the meeting. A reminder ema il with a copy of all

documents was sent a se cond time 10 days before the Workshop. The Chairperson

managed the peer-review before the workshop, and oversaw the dra fting of a report,

with the Consortium team supporting the Chairperson in organising the peer-review

process. The review repo rt was sent to the Consorti um a few days before the

workshop, so to optimise its flow and to ma ke sure all of the important issues could be

addressed on that day.

5.2 Summary of the discussion

The Consortium highlighted that it would be important to be aware that the Study

Report is not to be considered as a scientific publication, even though there was a

thorough peer-review.

The Consortium also ensured that they would be working on all comme nts received, so

to give an individual reply to each reviewer. However, it was also stressed that not all