VLIZ participates in several actions under the European mission 'Restore our oceans and waters by 2030', also known as Mission Ocean.
Mission Ocean aims to protect and restore the health of our ocean and waters by 2030 by promoting research, innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments. Mission is a new systemic approach that approaches the ocean and waters as one and will play a key role in achieving climate neutrality and nature restoration. In this context, Mission Ocean is an important building block within the European Green Deal.
VLIZ is involved in a number of supporting and cross-cutting actions and projects within the Mission Ocean framework. Examples include Prep4Blue, BlueMissionBanos and the development of the Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO) through Edito-Infra. We also participate in research and innovation projects that directly contribute to the Mission objectives, for example as the lead agency for the INSPIRE and DTO BIOFLOW projects, and as a partner in numerous other projects such as Ultfarms and Blue4all.
VLIZ underwrites its commitment to the Mission Ocean by signing the Mission Charter and also puts this into practice with a number of targeted actions. In November 2022, for instance, the research vessel Simon Stevin investigated litter, climate change and biodiversity loss in salty (North Sea), brackish (Westerschelde) and fresh waters (Zeeschelde). In addition, VLIZ proactively presents challenges and solutions for the Mission Ocean in our events and communication, such as the VLIZ Marine Science Day or the Blue Economy Science Summit in 2024. In doing so, we coordinate as much as possible with the Ocean Decade actions.