The Project consortium is formed on the basis of the TEMPUS EU-COMET Project 'Development of ICM education and training' integrated by UCA, UA and RSHU. All three partners have demonstrated their expertise in the fields of ICM and environmental sciences. A key success of this project was the achievement of a sustainable platform of long-term co-operation among the involved partners. As a confirmation of this outcome, a UNESCO University Twinning Network (UNITWIN) on 'Wise practices for sustainable human development' (WiCop-Europe) was established in August 2002, involving as new partners the University of Bologna (UB) and the University of Latvia (UL).

     The Faculty of Marine Science and Environment (UCA) has good experience of ICM education as a coordinator/participant in a number of international educational programmes, including TEMPUS, ERASMUS MUNDUS etc. The Department of Environment and Planning of University of Aveiro is a leader in the field of coastal municipality space planning. The EU "Life" projects "MARIA" and "ESGIRA MARIA" (Integrated management Structure) is an example of wise practices using the ICM methodology applied to a concrete geographical territory. The department is also involved into numerous EU educational and research projects, such as ACES (ALFA Project) and the SAL-Atlantico (INTERREGIII-Arco Atlantico).

     The Interdepartmental Research Centre for Environmental Science (UB) has a wide experience in coastal environmental policy development which led to the Environmental Impact Study of the Port of Ravenna (Italy) approved by the Italian Ministry of the Environment - an active interaction with coastal municipalities on sustainable management of tourism, and a network of international cooperation, which resulted in a multi-event training EU project on Environmental Assessment (HPCT-00159-99).

     The Institute for Environmental Sciences and Management (UL) has expertise in environmental coastal management and education and international co-operation, as evidenced by its participation in numerous European projects (JEP-09365-95 and JEP-4797-92, EU 'Life' Project Livonian Green Region 21).

     EUCC Mediterranean Center is the Mediterranean regional office of EUCC -The Coastal Union, an international NGO working over the last 15 years to support the sustainable management and conservation of the European coasts. EUCC Mediterranean Center is leading an international partnership on the development of a multimedia vocational distance training tool for ICM, "CoastLearn". CoastLearn aims to make the ICM methodology and practice accessible to coastal managers, decision makers, professionals, NGOs and coastal stakeholders in general. During this programme EUCC has cooperated with Russian Universities, administration and NGOs and produced a CoastLearn Russian version. The experience on EUCC on the development of multimedia training tools and CDROM based information tools will be brought into the partnership and facilitate that the use of these new training methodologies will be spread into the academic sphere.

     Department of ICM, RSHU is the first and unique in the Russian Federation department that started an academic course focused on ICM. The ICM facility at RSHU is supported by RF Ministry of Education and Sciences within the framework of the Federal Target Programme.

     All institutions have good information technologies infrastructures and skills. Staffing level of knowledge of English is enough that confirm by preliminary translation mentioned above ICM text books into English on the preparatory stage of TEMPUS proposal preparation. There are RSHU students that study Spanish at UCA during the last TEMPUS project.