European Marine Observation and Data Network | EMODnet

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.

Recent and on-going intergovernmental negotiations, such as the Lisbon Declaration adopted in the UN Ocean Conference 2022 and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework endorsed during the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in December 2022, have addressed marine pollution and restoration of marine ecosystem as some of the pressing challenges our Ocean is facing. Riding the wave of the highlighted challenges, the latest Call by the Ocean Decade focuses on transformative programmes contributing to Ocean Decade Challenge 1 – Marine Pollution, and Challenge 2 – Ecosystem Restoration and Management. Deadline for submission of full applications is 31 August 2023.

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.

About 60 delegates of the EMODnet Geology consortium met from 23-25 May in Torshavn, the Faroe Islands, to discuss results of the past project phase and the plans for the future. The Faroese geological survey Jardfeingi has been a subcontractor in the project during repeated phases of the project. For this meeting, they invited all project partners to meet on these remote islands in the Northern Atlantic.

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.

As part of the Horizon Europe Blue-Cloud 2026, EMODnet Chemistry is working closely with Copernicus Marine Service and the wider blue research community to extend the existing European federation of marine and inland water data management infrastructures and their services in support of the EU marine and maritime policies. By combining the interests of the European Open Science Cloud and European data infrastructures, the pilot cyber platform Blue-Cloud will evolve into a federated ecosystem offering researchers more FAIRness, advanced analytics and higher data quality. Check out the forthcoming events. (link to the upcoming events in this newsletter including: - 8 June, Blue-Cloud virtual labs - 13-15 June vre-hands-workshop

On 3rd May 2023 EMODnet’s newly appointed Head of Secretariat, Kate Larkin, presented EMODnet at the second EU Green Deal Data Space (GREAT) Webinar on ‘Biodiversity data for the EU Green Deal data space’.

In this webinar on #WorldOceanDay, you are going to learn more about two of the Blue-Cloud 2026 VLabs, namely the “Carbon-Plankton Dynamics” VLab that was developed in the pilot Blue-Cloud, and the brand new VLab “Integration of Coastal Ocean observations along Europe”.

The Digital Ocean Forum 2023 will bring together experts, stakeholders, policymakers and interested citizens in the co-design and co-creation of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean. The purpose of this event is to collaborate with stakeholders in defining the goals and aspirations that can be accomplished by setting up a robust EU Digital Twin Ocean (DTO).

Join us on 26-27 September 2023 for a two-day online workshop "EMODnet for Coastal tourism". The workshop will take place over two half-days (mornings) and is designed to explore how the coastal tourism industry can benefit from EMODnet. Participants will discover the potential of EMODnet services and will be able to engage in in cross-regional dialogue and exchanges with participants from all European sea basins.

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