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 VLIZ within the EMB Board.
VLIZ opened its doors to the EMB Working Group for the new edition of EMB’s flagship publication series, Navigating the Future VI, for the kick-off meeting in October 2022. Ruth Plets, Postdoc researcher at VLIZ, is a Member of this Working Group and will contribute to the chapter on Ocean and Climate.
In October 2022, the EMB Autumn Plenary meeting was hosted by VLIZ. The Open Session was organised by VLIZ on the topic of climate change, the carbon cycle and blue carbon, the session was moderated by Director Jan Mees and also featured Head of the VLIZ Research Department, Peter Landschützer as a speaker. During the Plenary meeting, five VLIZ PhD students also had the opportunity to present their research to the EMB Board Members. Peter is also part of the new Working Group on Blue Carbon, that kicked off in January 2023 and will produce a Policy Brief on Blue Carbon in 2023.
The VLIZ head of Communications, Jan Seys, actively supports the EMB Communications Panel and helped organise the 5th edition of CommOCEAN, the Marine Science Communication Conference, which took place in December in Sète, France. Jan Seys also Chaired the Working Group on Marine Science Communication in Europe, for which the publication was launched in June 2022 during a dedicated webinar, and is participating in the Ocean Oxygen Working Group as EMB Communication Panel Support, for which VLIZ also hosted the Working Group meetings.
Marine Severin and Alexander Hooyberg, PhD Students at VLIZ, presented their research at the February edition of EMB’s Third Thursday Science Webinar. Marine gave a talk on emotional mechanisms underlying the beneficial impact of coastal environments on mental well-being and Alexander spoke about psychological restoration along the Belgian coast and the influence of landscape type and content.
VLIZ staff continued to actively attend and participate in EMB’s strategic events and activities throughout 2022.