Words from coordinator
Dear reader,
On behalf of the entire Ocean citizen consortium, I am pleased to welcome you to this first project newsletter.
Ocean citizen, as a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Commission, is unique in its kind: It is one of the largest pilot projects ever launched in coastal restoration and the conservation of marine coastal biodiversity. What sets it apart is its replicability across a wide range of different ecozones.
The project brings together 22 partners from 9 EU countries to support the implementation of practical solutions aimed at ensuring the viability of effective restoration plans in degraded areas across 5 ecozones over a four-year period.
Not only is it a large-scale project, but it is also incredibly ambitious in terms of developing technical solutions, business models, and priority scenarios for impact assessment. We anticipate that the knowledge gained from this project will greatly influence the strategies for restoration in Europe and beyond. Indeed, in Ocean citizen, our aim is to collaborate with stakeholders worldwide, including universities, public administrations, and more.
While we faced some challenges initially, we have managed to overcome them and establish a solid foundation for the project in terms of technical progress and positive working interactions.
Thank you for your interest and support in Ocean citizen.
Best regards,
Sergio Rossi
Project Coordinator
Università del Salento
PREPARATION AND ELABORATION OF THE DATA MANAGEMENT PLAN
On the 22nd of January 2023, the Ocean citizen project Kick-off meeting was launched on the beautiful Island of Tenerife, Spain. Hosted at the Iberostar Grand Mencey Hotel, around 50 collaborators gathered for an exciting four-day meeting.
On day 1, Sergio Rossi introduced the project’s ambitions and objectives, emphasizing the importance of the Ocean citizen project results for the European Commission and the replicability of the project outcomes for oceans worldwide. Sergio emphasized the significance of Artificial Reefs technology in expanding and consolidating existing marine protected areas, creating ecological corridors for bio-system interactions, restoring biodiversity, and enhancing blue carbon through innovative structures and processes. Additionally, Sergio highlighted the importance of the five selected intervention areas across Europe. These areas, with their diverse nature in terms of climate, water characteristics, and socio-economic framework, will allow for testing Ocean citizen’s technology under different biodiversity, biomass, and Blue Carbon conditions, including various Marine Protected Areas and ecological corridors.
The Project Officer, Alberto Zocchi, joined the consortium online to share his vision for the project and communicate the European Commission’s expectations and the importance of projects of this magnitude in the industry.
During days 1 and 2, collaborators had time to discuss technical aspects and resolve issues through detailed presentations from each of the Work Package leaders.
On day 3, the entire consortium had the fantastic opportunity to visit the site of the future Underwater Garden Park in Punta Blanca. The Underwater Garden Park is a crucial element of the Ocean citizen project as it provides visitors with the chance to experience and engage with ocean restoration and ecosystem protection.
After enjoying a delightful lunch at a local restaurant, a visit to the island was organized, including a quick swim in the crystal-clear waters of Tenerife.
WEBSITE DELIVERABLE
At Month 4, the Ocean citizen website was launched. This milestone marks the completion of the project’s first deliverable and is of great significance.
The website serves as a centralized platform to communicate project-related information, updates, and progress to a wide audience. It plays a crucial role in creating awareness, transparency, and keeping stakeholders, partners, and the public informed about the project’s purpose.
Furthermore, an online repository and private communication tools have been established to facilitate information sharing among project partners. These platforms enable the exchange of details regarding the project’s objectives, activities, milestones, and outcomes. By fostering collaboration, encouraging involvement, and nurturing partnerships among stakeholders, these tools enhance the project’s effectiveness.
The launch of the Ocean citizen website has significantly increased the project’s visibility and branding. It continues to grow each day, providing opportunities for interested parties to connect, exchange ideas, and explore potential partnerships.
Effective communication is essential in ensuring that the Ocean citizen community is aware of our work. Within a short period, we have developed our communication visuals, including our logo, branding, and communication strategy. Now, we are proud to present our freshly launched website, where we will inform a broad audience about our activities and achievements.
We look forward to engaging with you on our website!
SOCIAL MEDIA
Together with the website launch, we are pleased to announce that we are now on a wide range of social media! You can find us, where we will inform a broad audience about our activities.
The project’s slogan for all the main social media channels has been decided to be: “Inspiring innovative solutions for ocean restoration and protection”.
Come to visit us!
1ST CAMPAIGN OF THE OCEAN CITIZEN PROJECT IN TENERIFE
One of the wonderful aspects of the Ocean Citizen project is the organization of campaigns that allow researchers from different technical and scientific backgrounds and nationalities to work together on the same boat. The first Ocean Citizen campaign was held in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) as part of Work Package 2.
In April 2023, after four months from the beginning of the project, several research groups started their activity in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). From the Alfred Wegener Institute, Dr. Havermans collected sediments and water to analyze the biodiversity through the eDNA. Different suspension feeding populations were also approached by the team of Università di Bologna (CONISMA, Dr. Constantini) to understand their presence and distribution, but also its potential connectivity through DNA analysis.
The presence of macroalgae was also explored by the joined group of Università di Genova and Università di Trieste (Dr. Kipston was present in Tenerife). From the CSIC-CEAB, Dr. Ribes and Dr. Coma made a survey of the gorgonian populations both in Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, to select the potential organisms for the thermotolerance experiments.
NETWORKING WITH OTHER EU PROJECTS: ANERIS AND PREP4BLUE
Networking with other European funded projects is crucial for the Ocean citizen consortium. A significant effort is dedicated to connecting with similar projects and teams to exchange ideas and best practices, identify synergies, and maximize efficiency. In this inaugural newsletter, our Coordinator, Sergio Rossi, had the opportunity to meet the coordinator of ANERIS (www.aneris.eu) and Ocean citizen partners have participated to several Prep4blue webinars (www.prep4blue.eu).
Sergio Rossi, Coordinator of the Ocean citizen project met the ANERIS Project coordinator at the ICM-CSIC to establish common frameworks for future collaborative activities. Positive synergies were found in tasks related to monitoring and evaluation of benthic macrofauna regeneration sites, mainly using innovative tools and technologies related to the Operational Marine Biology concept (OBM).
It was foreseen that fruitful collaborations will also take place at the stakeholder engagement level, as ANERIS will develop technologies related to participatory platforms and citizen science, which are also core aspects of the Ocean citizen project.
UnderwaterGarden and SUBMON’s teams have participated in the webinar series on citizen engagement titled “Planning for Citizen Participation in Mission Ocean & Waters, offered by the Horizon Europe project PREP4BLUE. The main goal of PREP4BLUE is to help the Mission’s first phase (2022-2025) succeed by creating and implementing research and innovation methods. This will help achieve the Mission’s objectives and prepare for involving citizens and stakeholders. The project will provide various tools, guidelines, and recommendations that have been tested through pilot programs. These will connect and enhance activities among the projects funded under the Mission.
The four sessions of this webinar aimed to help participants design activities that align with the citizen\stakeholder engagement target of the EU EU Mission goals of restoring our ocean and waters by 2030. The training provided participants with practical guidance and additional resources. More information and the recording of the session can be found here.
COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP
Last year, in May 2022, the Ocean citizen project was endorsed by the United Nations (UN). This achievement is important because it opens the doors to communicate the project worldwide. Now, in September 2023, we will have the opportunity to present the project, along with the COST action MAF-WORLD (www.maf-world.eu), at the UN in New York. The endorsement is a key factor in reinforcing the visibility of the project, which aligns with several Sustanaible Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN.
COMMUNICATION WORKSHOP
Communication is key for the good promotion and to raise awareness around the Ocean citizen results and outcomes. To design the best strategy, a Communication Workshop has been held in June with the Work package Leaders of the consortium.
SUBMON and UGI organized a Communication Workshop for all Work Package Leaders as part of the Work package “Management, Citizen Engagement and Communication” (WP6 activities). The workshop aimed to share progress on the Communication and Dissemination plan and gather feedback from the consortium. The session also focused on developing a cohesive communication strategy and core messages for the Ocean citizen project, targeting diverse audiences. Participants identified main and complementary keywords to create clear and consistent messages and determined the appropriate tone for addressing various stakeholders. Examples of statements were also created using the identified keywords.
NEXT STEPS
September 2023 will be a busy month for the Ocean Citizen team! A new campaign has already been set up in Tenerife, and a boat full of researchers is ready to set sail!
In September 2023, 11 partners will go to Tenerife to make different actions related with the tasks, especially those of WP2. Dr. Feldens from IOW and Dr. Schneider from the CAU will be in charge of the batimetry of Punta Blanca. They will be accompanied by Dr. Isla from the ICM-CSIC, who will set up the 4 years mooring with the sediment trap and current meters to evaluate sediment transport and carbon fluxes. Dr. Constantini from Uni Bologna (CONISMA) will expand the connectivity studies in sponge and cnidarians populations, whilst Dr. Bramanti from the CNRS will start looking for biodiversity parameters in the regeneration area. With Dr. Otero (ULPGC), the study of the population and the biodiversity will be made in shallow and mesophotic areas. The deeper areas will be made with ROV by Dr. Rossi together with the people of UGI, Miss Busquier, Garcìa-Duràn and Del Rìo. They will also support the actions of the other divers, as well as starting the stakeholder contact. Dr, Marbà and her team (CSIC-IMEDEA) will look for the phanerogam patches, whilst Dr. Johnson (NUI Galway) will be in charge of the fish density and biodiversity especially in the mesophotic area and the continental platform.
