(Seychelles News Agency) - Lecturers and representatives from different universities in the region participated in the first session of the ERASMUS Blue HEI project hosted by the University of Seychelles (UniSey) on ways of making the Blue Economy more mainstream.

Speaking to SNA, the acting director for the Blue Economy Research Institute (BERI) at UniSey, Dr Jerome Harlay said, "The project is meant to develop ways of transferring academic skills to the public domain by using the students to get training and exposure from outside Seychelles within the region. As well as European universities, we are collaborating with especially the work and different types of activities that they offer there."

He said that Blue Economy is one of the flagships of Seychelles and "so we have got sort of an advance in that. Still, we must also be aware of what is developing in other countries, especially neighbouring countries such as Madagascar and Comoros, because they are making their way also and there are good ideas that we can all share."

Harlay added that the most important factor of a project like this is the creation of links between the participants.

The delegates were from different universities from Madagascar, Mauritius, Portugal and the University of Alicante, which is managing this project.

The director of the Institutional Project Department of the University of Alicante, Carolina Madeleine, described this first session as a very positive experience.

She said that all the delegates were met to brainstorm ways of implementation for this project and "so far, it's only been on paper so we've brought together everyone to discuss the way forward. This project aims at providing capacity building for higher education – to involve students, businesses and investors."

The project is being funded through the ERASMUS + programme, which is a European Union fund meant to support education, training, youth and sport.

"The application process for this grant was very selective, out of 800 applications only 150 were selected," Madeleine said.

Among the delegates present at the three-day session, was also a representative of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission for the Indian Ocean and representatives of businesses based in the region, who were following online.

"One of the outcomes of the project is an online platform aimed at providing academic and entrepreneurial information based on the Blue Economy that anyone can access. To show the extent of the potential that the Blue Economy can have in the development of a country. It is also meant to encourage people to take up the Blue Economy, either in research or business. We want students to be more innovative, and entrepreneurial and to think outside the box," said Madeleine.

She shared that this project will include a survey to gauge the capacity of the universities participating in the project before a dedicated office for the Blue Economy is set up.

"We are working with different universities and different countries, they all have a different reality, so each office might not be identical we need to understand the situation for each university, here you already have different entities and departments as well as a ministry dedicated for the blue economy but this is not the case elsewhere," she said.

Another outcome of the project is a competition for the students from the different participating universities who will have to submit a project related to the Blue Economy that can be implemented in their country.