Presentation
Efforts to further engage the academic and research community into the world of operational spill response by an oil spill response organisation (OSRO)
SessionTransfer of Knowledge
DescriptionAbstract:
Historically, technical advances are often made through key industry-academic alliances in a diverse range of engineering, medical and scientific disciplines. Oil spill response studies are no stranger to research programmes within the academic / R&D community and have advanced our knowledge, understanding and capability significantly over the last 50 years. Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL) has embarked on an ambitious and progressive program of academic engagement activity over the last 10 years with 3 key aims and objectives:
1. To shape the response techniques of the future via targeted research;
2. To protect the existing tools in the response toolbox via education and
3. To inspire future response expertise via higher education outreach.
Typically, oil spill response personnel focus on the overarching operational considerations that maximise effectiveness when selecting techniques which together comprise the response strategy to mitigate any given spill scenario. Research scientists conversely may focus in on a much more detailed aspect of the spill which may have limited immediate operational relevance to the clean-up effort. Bridging this gap between operational relevance and the scientific focus can be enabled by linking response scientists with the academic research programme to inject an element of “operational realism” with the aim of producing outputs of direct relevance and application to push the boundaries of future spill response techniques and capability.
This paper will outline the OSRL outreach program in the UK describing the range of PhD research supported, a Masters course scholarship and the numerous workshops/lectures that are undertaken to reach out and inform the next generation of spill responders/scientists under the umbrella of “Bridging Research to Response”.
Historically, technical advances are often made through key industry-academic alliances in a diverse range of engineering, medical and scientific disciplines. Oil spill response studies are no stranger to research programmes within the academic / R&D community and have advanced our knowledge, understanding and capability significantly over the last 50 years. Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL) has embarked on an ambitious and progressive program of academic engagement activity over the last 10 years with 3 key aims and objectives:
1. To shape the response techniques of the future via targeted research;
2. To protect the existing tools in the response toolbox via education and
3. To inspire future response expertise via higher education outreach.
Typically, oil spill response personnel focus on the overarching operational considerations that maximise effectiveness when selecting techniques which together comprise the response strategy to mitigate any given spill scenario. Research scientists conversely may focus in on a much more detailed aspect of the spill which may have limited immediate operational relevance to the clean-up effort. Bridging this gap between operational relevance and the scientific focus can be enabled by linking response scientists with the academic research programme to inject an element of “operational realism” with the aim of producing outputs of direct relevance and application to push the boundaries of future spill response techniques and capability.
This paper will outline the OSRL outreach program in the UK describing the range of PhD research supported, a Masters course scholarship and the numerous workshops/lectures that are undertaken to reach out and inform the next generation of spill responders/scientists under the umbrella of “Bridging Research to Response”.
Authors
Event Type
Paper
TimeThursday, May 16th10:20am - 10:40am CDT
Location278-280
Restoration