EMODnet Biology and LifeWatch ERIC have joined forces to organize a one-day workshop on citizen science platforms on the 15th of November 2023. This workshop will take place as a hybrid event, with the in-person location being in Lecce, Italy, and will focus on teaching participants how to use Citizen Science platforms, such as Zooniverse and the LifeWatch Citizen Science Platform. The purpose of this Training Session is to create Citizen Science projects and engage volunteers in the historical data rescue and standardization process.

Over 100 stakeholders have already registered for the EMODnet Open Conference 2023! Do you have your ticket yet? We welcome all stakeholders across the ocean observation, marine data, information and knowledge value chain to join us on 29-30 November 2023 in Brussels, Belgium! The call for community (e-/digital) poster abstracts has been extended to 14th September. Don’t miss your chance to apply to present your work!

EMODnet centralisation may be complete, but EMODnet services continue to evolve. Discover the enhancements and latest technical upgrades to the EMODnet Map Viewer, brought to you by the Central Portal Technical team. These upgrades improve marine data discovery and visualization, including new map projections, customized parameter exploration, offering a more efficient and precise marine data exploration than ever before.

EMODnet Biology has completed its first quarter in Phase IV with a new data harvest in conclusion which will increase occurrence results to > 40 million! Data training workshops are also in planning for November 2023 with HCMR and LifeWatch ERIC

The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet ) is pleased to announce the launch of the EMODnet Vision 2035 public consultation! The EMODnet Vision 2035 focuses on service evolution. This builds on a EMODnet Call to Action (launched on 30 November 2023) and on EMODnet’s achievements to-date including the unification of EMODnet services in January 2023, and EMODnet’s ongoing partnership with Copernicus Marine Service to deliver the data infrastructure for the prototype European Digital Twin Ocean, launched in June 2024. The EMODnet Vision 2035 will deliver concrete and realistic goals for EMODnet’s digital services and service offer, to increasingly serve user needs, including directly supporting EU policy, the Blue Economy, Research and Innovation and wider stakeholders, and providing added value for the EU economic agenda and competitiveness, set in the global context. The public consultation (EU Survey, link above) is open to all EMODnet stakeholders and the wider community in Europe and worldwide. You can reply as an individual, organization, network, project or initiative. Results from the survey will be summarized and considered by the EMODnet Vision 2035 Drafting Group of experts that was set up in Spring 2024 to jointly deliver the EMODnet 2035 Vision, with members representing the EMOD-network (partners, associated partners, sea-basin checkpoints) and wider stakeholders. Thank you in advance for your feedback on how EMODnet could/should evolve its services over the next decade to 2035. Please distribute this widely to your professional networks. This survey remains open until 11 September Midnight CEST. Questions relating to the EMODnet Vision 2035 public consultation can be sent to Megan Tijssens: megan.tijssens[at]emodnet.eu .

The European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) is excited to announce that registration for the EMODnet Open Conference 2023, on 29-30 November 2023 is now OPEN!

From June 7th to 8th, the Biology consortium met in Crete, Greece, and online to wrap up Phase IV and kick off Phase V of the project. Those that were able to travel were extremely well received by our colleagues at HCMR in Crete.

EMODnet was well represented at the European Maritime Day (EMD) 2023, which took place on 24th-25th May 2023, at the BREST EXPO, Parc des Expositions de Penfeld in Brest, France. EMODnet thematic and data ingestion Coordinators, the Central Portal and Secretariat teams were in attendance, with a variety of roles representing EMODnet at the exhibition and multiple stakeholder workshops related to marine and maritime data for innovation and sustained ocean observations.

On 23rd May 2023 the EMODnet Steering Committee (SC) met in Brest, France, for its 18th meeting, hosted by Ifremer. At the 18th SC meeting, the EMODnet Secretariat announced a change in leadership, with Kate Larkin taking up the position of Head of Secretariat from April 2023 (read her welcome message here). Long-standing Head Jan-Bart Calewaert continues to work in the ocean data space, with more focus on global ocean data partnerships.

The consortium was recently informed of the funding approval for Phase V. The start date was May 10th, 2023, and the project will run for an initial two-year period until May 2025, after which there is a possibility of an automatic extension for another two years. As a wrap of Phase IV work, EMODnet Biology has recently published data from 47 additional datasets. This has increased the number of available occurrence records to 35.7 million, originating from a total of 1280 datasets.

The product, developed by the University of Sheffield, extends the EMODnet macrobenthos presence-absence product to map changes in macrobenthic communities over time, measured as species loss and gain and beta diversity.

EMODnet Biology reached the end of its Phase IV work cycle which resulted in more data being freely and openly available via the portal: users are now able to access to more than 40 Million occurrence records on various taxa distributed in European Seas and beyond.

The EMOD-network participated in force at the second edition of the International Ocean Data Conference (IODC-II) on 20-21 March 2023 where the recent EMODnet unification of services was presented, together with dialogues on EMODnet’s contribution to FAIR data and the Global Ocean Data Ecosystem, together with its active input to the UN Ocean Decade Data and Information Strategy. EMODnet was also well represented at the 27th session of the International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange" (IODE) of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO, held back-to-back on 22-24 March 2023.

On 27-28 March 2023, over 500 registered participants from 83 countries worldwide joined together for the OSL 3.0 hackathon, representing a diverse community of marine science practitioners, data scientists, IT professionals and innovators.

The International Ocean Data Conference - II will be held at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (France) on 20-21 March 2023 as a hybrid event The previous International Ocean Data Conference held in Poland 2022 concluded with new commitments and recommendations on achieving a “global ocean digital ecosystem” in the context of and as a contribution to the UN Ocean Decade. The IODC-II will focus on the implementation of those commitments and recommendations, and report on the problems faced, solutions found, lessons learned and challenges identified. Abstracts for oral presentations must be submitted before 15 November 2022.

Flanders Marine Institute, coordinator of EMODnet Biology, developed guidelines on how to report imaging data (focusing on the specific case of plankton imaging) in a standardised manner. The guidelines contain recommendations to users of imaging instruments on how to format their data for submission to biodiversity international data portals following the OBIS-ENV-DATA format, a Darwin Core (DwC) based approach to standardise biodiversity data. As a result of this work, and to showcase how to apply the best practices to a dataset that includes this associated media information, the Explore Your Shore dataset, available via EMODnet Biology was updated.

Join us at the third EMODnet Open Sea Lab Hackathon to address Ocean challenges in support of the EU Green Deal and the UN Agenda 2030. During a two-day open data virtual event (27-28 March 2023), participants will have the opportunity to explore and test the new features and advantages brought on by the unification of all seven thematics of EMODnet into one central portal.

On 2 March 2023 at 10:00 CET, at the online launch event, the new EOOS Strategy  and EOOS Roadmap for Implementation   2023-2027 will be presented and discussed. Be part of those discussions and invite your country's ocean-observing community, stakeholders and high-level decision-makers to join this two-hour event.

The Green Deal Data Space Foundation (GREAT) project aims at fostering an international cross-sectoral Community of Practice, which will shape and constitute the future Data Space through the provision and use of data. The project will deliver a roadmap for implementing and deploying the Green Deal Data Space, an infrastructure that will allow data providers and initiatives to openly share their data to tackle climate change and environmental challenge in a multidisciplinary manner. This introductory webinar will introduce the GREAT project and its goals, objectives and upcoming activities.

EMODnet works hard to be fit-for-purpose by taking into account user needs and requirements. Tell us how you have been experiencing your visit to the EMODnet Central Portal and how we could further improve the website’s user-friendliness and usability, by filling our feedback form. It will only take 5 minutes of your time.