Report of the Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy (WGMRE)

The third meeting of the ICES Working Group on Marine Renewable Energy (WGMRE) took place from 12 to 15 April 2016 and was hosted by University College Cork, Ireland. There were 11 attendees. New members attended from Belgium and the Netherlands. The main focus of the meeting was updates and reporting on relevant work in respective countries against ToRs.The meeting consolidated the main products from the 3-year cycle, identified strategic research topics associated with the potential impacts of marine renewable energy of in-terest to the wider ICES community, including agreement on a template for provision of annual country updates. A metadata base of information on web based information on research into potential impacts of marine renewable energy was finalised.The group gave consideration to risk-based policy approaches that can be used by regu-lators to reduce scientific uncertainties associated with the environmental impacts of human activities such as marine renewable energy (MRE). This included the deliverables from a Horizon 2020 funded project called RICORE whose focus in the adoption of risk-based decision making as a basis for assessing potential impacts of MRE, and Adaptive Management as an overarching approach to reducing scientific uncertainties. Coordina-tion with WGMBRED was provided by Raeanne Miller who attended both meetings.