Three co-design/co-creation/stakeholder consultation workshop reports, with recommendations/decisions for the project workplan

Grant Agreement: 101082021Project Acronym: MARCO-BOLOProject Title: MARine COastal BiOdiversity Long-term ObservationsDeliverable Number: D6.2Work Package Number: WP6Deliverable Title: Three co-design/co-creation/stakeholder consultation workshop reports, with recommendations/decisions for the project workplanDue Date: 31.07.2025Date of delivery (cover): 03.11.2025Submission (Ares ref): 03.12.2025 The MARCO-BOLO project aims to structure and strengthen European coastal and marine biodiversity observation capabilities, linking these to global efforts to understand and restore ocean health, hence ensuring that outputs respond to explicit stakeholder needs from policy, planning and industry. To this end, MARCO-BOLO has established and is engaging regularly with a Community of Practice (CoP) made up of (Marine and Coastal) Biodiversity Data Generators and Data users from marine observatories, data infrastructures, and other relevant stakeholders across the EU and internationally. The project has 7 Work Packages (WPs), with WP6 responsible for facilitating stakeholder engagement amongst the technical WPs 1–5 through the CoP, as well as developing Knowledge Transfer material from WP Deliverables and wider outputs. To enable stakeholder engagement and consultation, two major CoP events and three Co-design/Co-creation Workshops were planned. In the first two years of MARCO-BOLO, WP6 convened the first CoP and three Co-design/Co-creation Workshops, all held mainly online, with the exception of the second workshop. The aim was to bring together relevant partners and end-users through a phased approach to set up necessary feedback loops for the development of products that consider end-user needs and requirements. This report is Deliverable 6.2 of the project, which provides a summary of the three co-design/co-creation/stakeholder consultation workshops and weblinks to the full workshop reports, with main conclusions and recommendations/decisions for the project workplan that have and are being considered by the MARCO-BOLO Coordination team and Project Implementation Committee (PIC) composed of WP (co)leaders. The three workshops covered: 1st CoP Event (2) outputs from the stakeholder profiling exercise (D6.1) became available late in year one, limiting their use for early CoP design but are now being taken up by Task 6.3 Knowledge Transfer; (3) technical-WP products needed a certain level of maturity before useful co-design discussions could happen, so the third (later) workshop achieved a truer co-design interaction; (4) leveraging key EU events as engagement opportunities was effective; (5) ongoing engagement with Biodiversa+ and EuropaBON as core CoP members has been particularly fruitful. Further stakeholder engagement — including a Spring 2026 industry-focused event and the Final CoP Stakeholder event tentatively scheduled for September 2026 — will inform development of knowledge transfer plans and custom materials for target audiences (industry, policy makers, researchers).