The ultimate goal of research projects related to fisheries management such as PERCEBES is to produce evidence that can be used by decision makers in policies. However, policy making is a complex task influenced by many factors and often the amount of scientific evidence when decisions are made is scarce. As a way to promote an effective interaction between research and practice, PERCEBES is planning a meeting for February 2020 to engage stakeholders of the barnacle fishery across Europe. The meeting will be held in Asturias. Fishers, scientists and governmental officers from France, Portugal and Spain will meet to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from ones to others and discuss the findings gathered by the project since it was launched in 2017.
To plan the meeting, Alba Aguión and other researchers from the University of Vigo (EcoCost lab) and José Luis Acuña and Katja Geiger from the University of Oviedo (coordinators of the project) met last Friday at the ECIMAT. Researchers counted on the useful advice from Beti Nieto, José Luis García and Raúl González from WWF, who have extensive experience in the organization of engaging meetings for stakeholders, And Jorge Navacerrada, from the facilitation company ALTEKIO. Jorge Cachero from DOCUMENTAZUL also participated in the discussion, as the producer of the video documentary currently being prepared for the project. We look forward to sharing the results with administration and fishers. Without their collaboration certainly this project would not have been possible!