Forums, such as the one held in Caen, provide an opportunity to introduce possible partners and facilitate discussion of different potential projects. Forums also enable the sharing and exchange of different and well-developed practices and facilitate discussions with reference to multiple marine sectors of interest. Decision-makers and stakeholders showed a real interest in the continuation of this type of forum in the future. One of the key recurring themes taken from the forum concerned the importance of effective communication between partners. Communication is often missing from projects, despite its importance, because, for example, scientists do not take often the time to explain their findings in a way which is easy for non-scientists to understand.