The Joint Programming Initiative Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans (JPI Oceans) is a pan-European intergovernmental platform that increases the efficiency and impact of research and innovation for sustainably healthy and productive seas and oceans. VLIZ is commissioned by the Flemish government to support the JPI Oceans Secretariat and does so by providing a full-time employee to the JPI Oceans secretariat in Brussels. In addition, VLIZ hosts the JPI Oceans website and provides technical support in the updating and further development of the website.
JPI Oceans highlights of 2022 include the start of the activities of the Joint Action on Ocean Carbon Capacities which will address and reduce uncertainties in the understanding of the ocean’s buffering and carbon storage capacities. A group of 27 experts, including two scientists from VLIZ, will assess the ocean carbon value chain and identify the most pressing needs in this field of research and propose ideas for activities.
2022 also saw a lot of activity of the Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise, a network a network of pan-European experts supported by JPI Oceans and JPI Climate. In 2022, the Knowledge Hub organized four regional basin-specific scoping workshops which were an integral part of a two-year long scoping process carried out to identify and target the needs and involvement of policy makers, coastal planners and stakeholders at large. The findings from the workshops served to inform and co-design the topics which were addressed at the Sea Level Rise Conference on 17-18 October 2022 in Venice, Italy. These activities are setting the stage for periodic assessments of knowledge on sea level rise drivers, impacts and policy options for each of the major sea basins around Europe.
Another highlight of the year was the start of five new projects on underwater noise in the marine Environment’ which were awarded funding in the wake of a JPI Oceans call. The latter was a unique collaboration between Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania and Spain together with BANOS, BlueMed, NOAA and the UN Ocean Decade.
Coming to a close in 2022 was the celebration of the ten-year anniversary of JPI Oceans which culminated with the unveiling of the winning entries of the Photo and Art Awards. In the JPI Oceans project competition, the jury selected New Shades of Blue of Filipa Bessa, a biologist and researcher participating in the JPI Oceans I-Plastic project (see picture).
At the strategic level, JPI Oceans further contributed to the advancement of the new Horizon Europe partnership on Sustainable Blue Economy which officially started its activities in September 2022. The Partnership will, among other activities, launch and implement six co-funded calls for research and innovation proposals over a seven-year timeframe. The planned investments over 7 years are expected to reach € 450 Million. In collaboration with VLIZ, JPI Oceans is actively involved in the communication activities of the new partnership.