The European Marine Board (EMB) provides an independent pan-European platform to its marine scientific Member Organisations to establish common research priorities, to promote marine research and to close the gap between marine science and policy. VLIZ represents FWO as a European Marine Board Member and was given the mandate by the Flemish government to accommodate and support the EMB Secretariat. The EMB Secretariat, hosted by VLIZ at the new InnovOcean campus, benefits from VLIZ support through the use of the general VLIZ infrastructure, IT support, and one EMB staff member.
Jan Mees, VLIZ General Director, served as the EMB chairman from 2014 until June 2019 and remains involved as the Delegate of FWO within the EMB Board by participating in the bi-annual Board meetings.
One of EMB’s main highlights of 2023 was the science-policy conference EurOCEAN 2023, co-organised by EMB on 10-11 October in Vigo, Spain. The conference highlighted the synergies between the UN Ocean Decade, the EU Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030, and other EU initiatives, and was attended by over 250 stakeholders, including VLIZ General Director Jan Mees and Vice Director Tina Mertens.
At the conference, EMB launched Policy Brief no. 11 on “Blue Carbon: Challenges and opportunities to mitigate the climate and biodiversity crises”. This publication aims to provide a concise overview of Blue Carbon, including recommendations relevant for policy and future research funding. Peter Landschützer, Head of the VLIZ Research Department, was actively involved as a co-author.
Organised back-to-back with the EurOCEAN 2023 conference, the EMB Young Ambassadors organised a 2-day ECOP Network Forum to give early career ocean professionals the opportunity to learn about the European science-policy landscape and receive hands-on training on how to interact with and effectively communicate their science to policymakers. Sarah Schmidlin, Junior Researcher at VLIZ, participated in the in-person event.
Throughout 2023, the European Marine Board continued to work on the sixth edition of its flagship publication “Navigating the Future”. Ruth Plets, Postdoc research at VLIZ, is an active member of the Working Group and is specifically contributing to the chapter on Ocean and Climate. The document will be published in 2024.
A kick-off meeting for the Working Group on “Deep Sea and Ocean Health” took place at the InnovOcean Campus in 2023. The aim of the Working Group is to produce a Future Science Brief outlining the current policy- and research status and future recommendations in relation to the deep sea.
The VLIZ head of Science Communications, Jan Seys, continues to actively support the EMB Communications Panel (EMBCP). In general, VLIZ staff continued to actively attend and participate in EMB’s strategic events and activities throughout 2023.