Hub Activities

Formalizing the Hub: Develop inter-organizational working agreements to sustain Hub and industry engagement

Build coordination capacity and formalize working agreements with a commitment to productive and efficient efforts to invest in industry-led initiatives and provide diverse stakeholders the chance to engage in discussions designed to attend to emergent industry needs and barriers to growth.

Expand training in response to aquaculture workforce needs.

Collaborators will:

• expand our successful Aquaculture in Shared Waters (AQSW) training to include a new, more advanced curriculum;
• continue a longitudinal study of AQSW participants and program evaluation using social science methods to assess the program and provide feedback on effectiveness and needs.

Develop a 10-year roadmap for aquaculture in Maine. 

Collaborators will conduct a series of stakeholder and industry focus groups to reexamine the 2010 aquaculture economic development plan, assess the state’s progress in its implementation, and construct a new set of action items designed to guide the state’s aquaculture development for the next 10 years.

Build capacity within Maine’s aquaculture industry by establishing a responsive call for proposals that encourages industry leaders to identify the most effective means of achieving growth.

This activity will:

• incorporate needs from 2019 assessments into focused discussions with stakeholders to develop a call for proposals;
• establish an annual process to target identified industry needs;
• strategically invest in expansion and diversification needs of the industry

Evaluate impacts of the transdisciplinary Hub, and the effectiveness of the Hub’s programming with a focus on long-term sustainability.

Social scientists will conduct electronic surveys and interviews with participants in the transdisciplinary Hub and those funded by the RFP to assess the effectiveness and provide feedback necessary to improve and inform future investments.