Research on cocreation of marine infrastructure completed

The development of large-scale infrastructure such as MMLIs often gets stranded before the realisation phase because of social, spatial, technical or financial obstacles. Cocreation is one way of overcoming these obstacles: from the design phase, key stakeholders are engaged and asked to participate.

In the “Design for public value at sea” project, D4PV@Sea for short, DEME, Jan De Nul, Econopolis and ORG Squared investigated how the cocreation process can be steered in the right direction to achieve a widely supported design and thus increase the success rate of an MMLI.

After one and a half years of research, D4PV@Sea has come to an end and the consortium has developed a generic toolbox. This can be used in future developments as a guide to the cocreation process. 

The Toolbox consists of a ‘kit of parts’ that contains the specific preconditions, design rules of thumb and layout rules for MMLIs. Furthermore, an ambition framework, a genealogy and an evaluation model have been developed.

The MMLI Atlas contains several scenarios developed using the tool by the consortium and shows how the toolbox can be used in the cocreation process. The atlas also shows the functionalities of six types of MMLIs in technical, economic and ecological terms.

Besides the classic function for energy (including wind, solar, hydrogen and pumped hydro energy storage) and food (including aquaculture), production and storage, biodiversity, climate regulation and the carbon footprint, as well as the tourism potential of the scenarios were also considered.

Building and operating an MMLI has a significant direct and indirect impact on employment and the economy. A decent cocreation process can increase the success rate of an MMLI and shorten the development procedure. Cocreation can therefore provide an important impetus to make the sea a sustainable production zone.