Interviews

This WP's second activity consisted of a series of face-to-face interviews to delve deeper into topics of particular interest that emerged during the surveys. The interviews were carried out online and recorded with the consent of the interviewees to review, analyze, and create dissemination material. Each interview followed a basic format to extrapolate meaningful data for the project. The interview was structured in three sections:

(i) an introduction with a short presentation of NAUTILUS and the aims of the interview;

(ii) a second part following a guided interview with questions related to the field of the expertise or activities of the interviewees, the data usually collected or used, procedures followed or developed to check and validate the achieved results or products, highlight the innovative aspect of the conducted research/business and what is still missing, and which are the open challenges;

(iii) a free part to elaborate on topics that emerged in the discussion.

Additional topics covered were the importance of color-correcting underwater images, the need for fully 3D data compared to 2.5D data, and training and safety for underwater operations. In addition, participants were presented with the NAUTILUS portal developed within WP2 and were asked to consider sharing any datasets or benchmark datasets.

In total, 15 interviews were conducted, including two double interviews, with interviewees from seven countries. Fourteen participants were from academia, two from companies, and one from a Marine Protected Area (government organization), working in the following application domains: robotics, computer vision, archaeology, marine ecology, subsea metrology, and industry. On average, an interview was about 3⁄4 of an hour long.

You can read the Interviews Report here