Iliad Digital Twin of the Ocean builds on the assets resulting from two decades of investments in policies and infrastructures for the blue economy and aims at establishing an interoperable, data-intensive, and cost-effective Digital Twin of the Ocean. It is a project with 56 International Partners.
Role of Breda University of Applied Sciences in the project:
The BUas professorship of Serious Games, Innovation and Society plays an important part in research and development of maritime spatial planning simulation game software, as well as broader digital twins for sustainable oceans. The research & development team will re-use and extend the technologies and experiences of the Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Challenge Simulation Platform, with special attention to enabling interactive 3D and Virtual Reality experiences. Thus, in short, this professorship will conduct design research to develop, disseminate and apply such software.
MSP Challenge uses game technology and role-play to support communication and learning for Marine and Maritime Spatial Planning. It has been designed to help decision-makers, stakeholders and students understand and manage the maritime (blue) economy and marine environment. It integrates best available geo, maritime and marine data with simulation models for ecology, shipping and energy production. The stakeholders will get a look into the future and the consequences of the decisions they make today.
While BUas will develop the software, other consortium partners provide in-depth subject matter expertise, notably on geographical information systems, marine and environmental sciences, and maritime/marine policy-making.
Bringing knowledge into practice:
Once developed, the software will be disseminated through a marketplace (also developed within the Iliad project). It will also be applied through workshops and demo sessions to help build a community of users and as part of the co-design process to begin with. This project is first and foremost targeted at supporting policy-making for sustainable oceans.
In addition, the involvement of universities also presents opportunities to engage with the higher education field beyond the consortium. BUas always looks for opportunities for interns and student assistants (not just our own) to get involved in the project work itself. The involved BUas staff are also often teachers at different bachelor’s and master’s programmes within the Academy for AI, Games and Media and beyond. As the project progresses, they will deploy relevant materials, solutions, and simply knowledge in their courses.
Future collaboration?
The professorship of Serious Games, Innovation and Society, continues to look for European collaborations in this area, best summarized as research and development of digital twins of the ocean.
BUas has a diverse portfolio of professorships, befitting the nine domains BUas focuses on strategically: AI & Data Sciences, Games, Media, Tourism, Leisure & Events, Logistics, Built Environment, Hotel, Facility. The BUas-wide research programme has four cross-domain key topics. It addresses current and future societal challenges and focuses on research that has local relevance within the global context.
The BUas R&D programme focuses on four themes: Experiences as catalysts, DigitalRealities as a means, Places as platforms, and Sustainability as a goal of essential societal innovation and transformation. These themes are relevant for all domains to address societal challenges and connected to cross-domain learning communities. On these topics BUas is also looking for European collaboration.
For more information, contact Harald Warmelink: warmelink.h@buas.nl
