Given the various challenges North Western Europe is facing in the energy system, and the central role of the North Sea area in Europe’s energy transition, a number of parties from this area decided to collaborate on establishing a Region of Knowledge around the North Sea with a primary focus on dealing with the energy transition challenges. To that end, in October 2012, a three-year EU-funded collaborative initiative was started to establish and develop the ‘European North Sea Energy Alliance’ (ENSEA). The participating parties represent the ‘triple-helix’: organisations of the public, business and academic energy sectors from the Northern Netherlands, North West Lower-Saxony, South West Norway, and Scotland. Later the consortium was joined by triple-helix representatives from the North Denmark region a an associated partnership, in our common aim to “increase the competitiveness of research-driven energy clusters through better coordination and exploitation of research to support innovation in Energy Systems Integration”.
