WECANet is funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology Association. www.cost.eu

The special characteristic of the WECANet network is its unique, interdisciplinary approach which brings together many researchers and professionals of different backgrounds, i.e.: (a) Industrial partners and experts on technology commercialization within the Marine Renewable Energy sector; (b) Partners from the ‘Engineering world’: Coastal and Ocean Engineering, Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Naval Architecture Engineering, Ship Hydrodynamics, Maritime Technology, Computational and Chemical Engineering; (c) Partners from the sciences of Applied Mathematics, Physics and Biology; (d) Partners from the sciences of Economics and Business administration, Law, Policy and Environmental Assessment, Social and Gender sciences; (e) Other stakeholders: wave energy technology developers and supply chain, output end-users, utilities, energy companies, financing authorities, offshore industries and service providers, policy makers, other sea users, general public communication specialists and local communities.

The scientific impact of the WECANet network lies on the significant number of experts in the field of wave energy who actively take actions in forming the output of the network: research, training, transnational collaboration and effective networking. The socioeconomic impact of the WECANet network lies on our fully inclusive policies to support early career investigators, to promote gender and age balance, to pursue geographical spread, and to support participants from the ‘so-called’ “Inclusiveness Target Countries” (ITCs). This is a long list of countries which, according to the European Commission, do not perform as well as other countries in terms of applying for and obtaining European funding. The means of support of WECANet to its participants are based on offering funding, research collaboration opportunities and training courses, and transnational access to high-level, state-of-the-art research facilities and infrastructures. In this way, WECANet promotes and spreads excellence, by, at the same time, ensuring equal opportunities and gender-friendly career advancement. WECANet’s ultimate objectives which have high socioeconomic impact, are to identify excellence in science and technology across Europe, to increase research communities’ access to funding and research infrastructures, and to trigger structural changes in the member countries’ national research systems.