Blue Economy. A Manual for VET Teachers, Trainers, Career Counsellors, Learners and Professionals

The global economic potential of the Blue Industry is immense, generating in the EU approximately 5.4 million jobs and almost 500 billion euros per year. This training course in the blue economy presents the main sectors as employment and growth contributors.

This course is part of the Erasmus+ project “BeBlue - “Career Guidance in Blue Economy”, implemented by a consortium of three partners from Romania, Spain and Turkey, aiming at offering a better understanding of the different sectors in the blue economy.

The Blue Industry comprises of all sectors connected to seas and oceans, regardless of whether the activities take place on the sea or the land. These include fisheries, coastal tourism, maritime transport, marine extraction of oil and gas, the offshore wind industry, blue biotechnology, deep-sea mining or desalination as well as research, development, and education.

The introductory chapter of this textbook provides an overview of each blue industry sector with the intention to guide future professionals in choosing their blue careers.

Willing to give prospective employees and high school learners deep information about the sector, job opportunities and training centres offering specialized courses, the textbook presents eight distinct chapters. Each chapter emphasizes the professional paths of those who would like to explore new job opportunities or start a career in one of these sectors. In addition, due to the transferability of skills and competencies, professionals working in blue economy sectors have the chance to move horizontally from one sector to others. For this purpose, the trans-sectoral working section of each chapter highlights a few directions that can be considered.

Evaluation can have many purposes, from collecting information, rating students, or gathering data as part of personnel decisions. Several questions are included in the evaluation section of each chapter to offer suggestions on the main points of the chapter.

For those preferring to learn more about the blue economy sectors, reading and video resources are available in the supplementary reading section. Moreover, self-reflection questions give the opportunities to stop and be reflective about the learning that has taken place or be curious to further explorations.

The last chapter of this textbook refers to career guidance and mentoring in the blue economy. Depending on the experience, professional skills, and intention, each person can be a mentor or mentee. The tools included in this chapter offer the chance to have structured discussions while following a flow of mentoring. It is an invitation to career counsellors to use the good practices and tools collected by the authors for guiding their learners and professionals in planning and growing their careers.