The 1st meeting of FACECOAST cluster was hosted by the ISPRA institute during the Technical Seminar of COASTANCE (Rome, 26th and 27th January 2012). After the initial adhesion of two European projects of the MED program; MAREMED and COASTANCE (Rome, November 10th 2011), other 5 projects joined the cluster FACECOAST: RESMAR ("Rete di Tutela Ambientale nello Spazio Marittimo"), TEP ("Tourisme Ports et Environnement") and PERLA ("ProjEt pouR L'Accessibilité, l'utilisation et la sécurité de la bande côtière del les régions transfrontalières") from Cross border Maritime programme Italy-France and MICORE ("Morphological Impacts and Costal Risk Induced by Extreme Storm events") and THESEUS ("Innovative technologies for safer European coasts in a changing climate") both from FP7.

Representatives from all these projects presented their topics and showed their interest in joining FACECOAST. Barbara Zanuttigh and Andrea Taramelli made a short presentation illustrating how the THESEUS project is leading to the promotion of “healthy” coasts for both development and the natural environment taking into consideration governance structures, natural responses to coastal processes and perceptions of flood risk. The presentation highlighted the development of an integrated methodology for risk assessment of coastal flooding and erosion taking into account the changing climate and integrating the best technical and adaptive capacity in coastal management in a strategic framework; including response strategies and application that is leading to a final output with the THESEUS Decision Support System (DSS).

In light of THESEUS' membership of FACECOAST, THESEUS was represented at the final COASTANCE conference in Komotini (Greece) which took place on  March 26-28th 2012.
During the conference an overview of the THESEUS project was presented by Mavra Stithou in order to explore synergies with other projects participating in the FACECOAST cluster. Through discussions that took place during the conference a strong interest was expressed for THESEUS' particular objectives and applied methodology which led to on-going planning for future collaboration.