Capacity development of European coastal and marine management – gaps and bridges

In the context of increasing pressures on European coastal zones and a proliferation of coastal and marine legislative and policy initiatives to alleviate these pressures, it is argued that there is a lack of capacity to successfully implement coastal and marine management programmes. This paper reviews perspectives of 26 coastal managers and 32 academics involved in the SPICOSA Project, to identify European coastal and marine management education and training needs and availability of courses to fulfil those needs. Results show that there are significant gaps in the requirements and delivery of courses and the paper concludes with recommendations to bridge the divide between professional needs and academic and training capacity development activities.