Tour d´EFFORTS

In my role as leader of the dissemination activities I am going to visit the sub-project leaders of EFFORTS. This means I will visit the Port of Dublin for SP 1 "Navigation in Ports", the Port of Le Havre for the SP 2 "Ports and Environment" and the Port of Gijon for the SP 3 "Port Organisation".

Improvement of the communication

The aim of this tour is to get a deeper insight into the project activities in order to facilitate reports about the most relevant results, proceedings and events of EFFORTS and to improve the project internal communication on the one side. This on the other side enables an effective communication towards external observers of the project. Only by a sound knowledge of the proceedings in the project a sound dissemination of the project is possible. The dissemination of the successful work of a project like EFFORTS to the stakeholders, e.g, the EU-commission, is crucial for all project partners. It is important for the assessment of the project by the external observers as well as for the future exploitation of the project results. A good communication is necessary to earn the merits that good research means.

For the establishment of a good internal communication it is necessary to build up personal relations which are preliminary for trust. Trust between the project partners is necessary for the exchange of information because one does not share information with someone one does not trust. Such personal trustful relationships can only be established by personal contact where one can look into ones other eyes as it will happen during this trip. By reporting about the visits at the sub-project leaders all project partners and observers will get acquainted with the sub-projects they lead, their ports and the related challenges.

Attempt to travel climate friendly

As we are in a project about ports and ships and to be climate friendly I will travel by ship and rail and one leg by plane. One aspect is that by using a ship to arrive or leave the ports a much better understanding for the issues at stake can be developed. One becomes a real part of the system other than by flying in by plane where one usually stays a distant observer. It gives the opportunity to see the port operations live in action like berthing and mooring. It offers the possibility to talk to the operating personnel who are the research subjects of some of the work packages.

Although it is not an explicit topic of the EFFORTS project, climate protection is an issue in every mouth these days. Especially people like us in the European research project business travel a lot and cause quite a lot of CO2 emissions by it. And on top of that we are occupied with transport research. So we are the ones Europe looks at for solutions for more climate friendly transport solutions. Travelling by rail and ship is a small experiment and part of the intention is to give some inspiration to think about the way we work and travel.

News coverage of the trip by EFFORTS blog

The start of the tour will be 17 February 2008 and return to Hamburg will be 26 February. During this time I will cover the trip by reporting in a blog on the EFFORTS website. It will be reported about the information gathered "live" about the visited sub-project leaders and the ports. The reports will connect the visited people and places to the project and by this will support the cohesion of the project partners. Such live reports will make the project more palpable because they put faces and names to the abstract contents of the work packages.

# posted by Jan Prahm @ 14:45