The 2024 edition of the European Maritime Day will take place in Svendborg, Denmark, on 30-31 May. Co-organised by the European Commission, the City of Svendborg and the Danish Maritime Authority, this fully-fledged physical event will feature inspiring high-level panels, attractive workshops, innovative pitching sessions, and an exhibition area.

To make the EMD2024 accessible to the widest audience possible, the opening and high-level sessions will be available via streaming to the remote participants.

For the first time, the EMD2024 edition will have on the programme the second annual event of the European Blue Forum, adding even more opportunities to exchange on challenges and opportunities in the EU sustainable blue economy sector.

With hundreds of years of maritime history and with constant involvement in the blue economy, Svendborg will be a great host of the EMD 2024, offering the participants plenty of opportunities to connect with peers, exchange views, showcase achievements and get up to speed with the latest policy developments in the maritime world.

The detailed programme of EMD 2024, the call for workshops, and for exhibitors will be announced closer to the date. Stay tuned!

Follow our news and sign up to the EMD Newsletter!

Just in! Project Awards Registrations are extended until November 6th, 2023! Apply now! 

Extended Application Deadline

We are pleased to announce that we have extended the application deadline to provide you with more time to present your maritime achievements in the Black Sea region. The new deadline for applications is now November 6th, 2023.

This extension offers you the opportunity to make the most of this recognition platform and showcase your contributions to the success of the Black Sea's maritime sector. The application is easy and it will only take you a few minutes.

Eligibility and Evaluation

To participate in the Black Sea Project Awards, your project should meet specific criteria:

• Projects must be implemented within the geographical area covered by the Black Sea Common Maritime Agenda, which includes Bulgaria, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Türkiye, and Ukraine.
• Projects should have been initiated and/or completed within the 36 months leading up to the announcement of the call for applications.
• Applications can be submitted by individuals or organizations that are project leaders or partners within the project consortium. This includes professionals, entrepreneurs, research institutions, maritime clusters, associations, and NGOs located in the Black Sea region.

Your applications will be rigorously evaluated by independent experts from the Black Sea Assistance Mechanism and the European Commission (DG MARE and CINEA). They will consider various factors, including the relevance of your project to the selected award categories, the degree of innovation, and its impact on social, environmental, and economic aspects, as well as transnational elements and potential for replication.

Honoring Excellence

The Black Sea Project Awards aim to acknowledge and celebrate excellence in the maritime community by recognizing three outstanding projects, one from each award category. Winning projects will enjoy enhanced visibility through the CMA's digital platforms, media coverage, and a dedicated CMA Newsletter.

Furthermore, a "winner of winners" will be selected through a dynamic pitching competition at the award ceremony. This provides an additional opportunity for visibility and recognition. The selected projects will receive a special prize and the exclusive Black Sea Project Award Seal to incorporate into their communication and marketing materials.

The maritime community eagerly awaits the announcement of the winners at the Black Sea Project Award ceremony scheduled for November 22-23, 2023, in Bucharest, Romania. This event promises to be an excellent opportunity to showcase innovation, sustainability, and excellence in the Black Sea's sustainable blue economy.

For more information and to submit your application, please visit the following links and join us in celebrating maritime excellence in the Black Sea, and stay tuned for more updates as we continue this remarkable journey!

Date: 22/11/2023 - 23/11/2023

Venue: National Bank of Romania, 8 Doamnei Street, Bucharest 70421 Romania

Organiser: The Black Sea Assistance Mechanism & The Romanian CMA Presidency with the support of the European Commission CINEA/DG MARE

Registration: Apply Here

Discover our 3 tracks to support deep tech projects in every maturity level:

• S3E Start supports research teams and tech transfer offices to bridge the gap from lab to market with a unique and validated Training Program.
• S3E Charge supports start-ups in their growing phase to improve their business model and connect them with funding opportunities with a recognised Mentoring and Networking Program.
• S3E Reverse connects corporate challenges with solutions from scaleups/SMEs with a Brokerage Program based on a successful open innovation methodology.

Read More: https://south3e.eu/apply-now/

Black Sea Common Maritime Agenda Stakeholder Conference 2023 – Joining efforts for a sustainable, modern competitive blue economy in the Black Sea 

The Black Sea Common Maritime Agenda Stakeholder Conference 2023 is set to take place on 22-23 November in Bucharest, under the auspices of the CMA Romanian coordination.

It sets out to be a pivotal event for all stakeholders interested in the region's sustainable blue economy development and competitiveness. The conference aims to bring together voices from various sectors, backgrounds, and experiences to address crucial challenges and opportunities in the Black Sea basin. From the marine environment to investment, entrepreneurship, and skills, join us for 2 days of talks and activities providing a platform for knowledge sharing and collaborative efforts towards unleashing the full potential of the Black Sea sustainable blue economy.  

Registration is Now Open! 

We are thrilled to announce that registrations are officially open for the Black Sea Common Maritime Agenda Stakeholder Conference 2023. However, please note that seats are limited, so we encourage you to register fast to secure your spot. 

Register using this link!  EUSurvey - Survey (europa.eu)

You can also check the draft agenda for the event: Black Sea Stakeholder Conference 2023-Agenda

Mark your calendars and stay tuned for updates! 

Together, we can boost the transformation towards a climate-neutral, sustainable, and competitive Black Sea blue economy.

REST-COAST is glad to extend a warm invitation to all interested parties to join this year’s Annual Meeting of the project. With a dedicated stakeholder forum session, the gathering will take place on 19 September, 2023 in Gdansk, Poland. 

This meeting holds a significant importance to the future development of REST-COAST as we come to discuss the current hands-on restoration actions within our pilot sites. The opinion, insights and expertise of the external stakeholders will be of a great value for shaping the actions ahead, as the project strives to fulfill its mission.

Project background

Rapidly developing and changing, coastal regions are experiencing progressive degradation and escalating risks, further exacerbated by climate change. At the same time, coastal management is often based on single-sided use of resources proven unsustainable in the long term and fails to address issues in the long term.

To address these issues, REST-COAST aims to deliver healthy and climate resilient European coastal regions, achieved through innovative large-scale systemic restoration, which can enhance the delivery of ecosystem services and improve coastal biodiversity status.

Moreover, in order to overcome present hurdles to upscale coastal restoration interventions, the project will utilise new technical, financial, management and transfer tools.

Details

Location: Conference & Exhibition Centre (BHP Hall) 6 Popiełuszki 80-864 Gdańsk, Poland

When: 19 September, 2023

Agenda: Find the meeting agenda here.

Additional notes: Field trip to the Vistula Lagoon will be organised on 18 September, 2023 

Registration deadline: 5 September, 2023

For inquiries about the stakeholder forum, field trip, accommodation and other related topics, please contact: 

Grzegorz Rozynski, REST-COAST partner and host of the event, grzegorzrozynski@ibwpan.gda.pl 

Ivan Caceres, REST-COAST Project Manager, i.caceres@upc.edu 

Registration Form

Dear readers,

The EU Green Deal project “Large scale RESToration of COASTal ecosystems through rivers to sea connectivity - REST COAST” is aiming to demonstrate to what extent upscaled coastal restoration can provide a low-carbon adaptation, reducing risks and providing gains in biodiversity for vulnerable coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands or sea grass beds. There are 9 pilot sites, representative for the main EU marine regional seas and coastal areas: the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The project brings together 38 partners to assess ecosystem services from coastal marshes, seabed meadows and coastal dunes, to reduce erosion and flooding risks, while enhancing biodiversity, food provisioning, water purification and blue carbon. 

Further information concerning the project can be found at: https://rest-coast.eu/, as well as at: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101037097

An initiative for expert assessment of some ecosystem service (ES) delivered by several benthic habitats has emerged within the context of the REST COAST. In order to fulfil this task regarding the Black Sea habitats, it is necessary experts from the Black Sea to evaluate the ES delivered by different coastal benthic habitats.

With this respect, we kindly ask each and every one of you to take part into the process of ES delivery assessment. Please, note that participation by filling in this survey (questionnaire) is entirely voluntary. In order to decrease biases and improve representativeness of the assessment, it is recommendable as many respondents as possible to complete the survey. 

We kindly ask you to complete the survey by September 15th, 2023.

Should you have any questions, please contact Assoc. Prof. Nikolay Valchev, Team leader of Bulgarian participation in REST COAST at: office@io-bas.bg Your contribution will be highly appreciated. 

We would like to thank you in advance for your valuable time and efforts. 

Dear Black Sea stakeholders, 

Please find attached a letter at the signature of Mr. Christos ECONOMOU, Head of Unit of DG MARE Unit A3, on the open Call for expression of interest for new Smart Specialization (S3) partnerships to join the S3 Thematic Platform on Sustainable Blue Economy. 

More information on the call, services and assistance offered to regions and stakeholders under the S3 Community of Practice (CoP) and can be found here.

BSVKC Team 

Learn more:

Attachment 1: Smart Specialization Strategies (S3) – Information to sustainable blue economy stakeholders on the call for S3 partnerships

Attachment 2:  Smart Specialization for Sustainable Blue Economy - Stakeholders’ thematic priorities for S3 partnerships - outcomes of brokerage sessionsthat took place in 2022

Dear Black Sea Stakeholders, 

We are happy to inform you that the first ARSINOE Open Tender for Innovation is now open until 23 July 2023! We seek adaptation solutions to help our regions and communities from Main River (Germany), the Canary Islands (Spain) and Ohrid and Prespa Lakes (Albanian demarcation).

Full details are available here: https://arsinoe-project.eu/open-calls/

A Summer Training on Science Communication for the Black Sea Young Ambassadors took place on 12-13 June 2023 in Istanbul.

📢 Black Sea Accelerator is now open to applicants promoting sustainable #BlueEconomy solutions!🚀

Facilitated by #BRIDGEBlackSea and DOORS Black Sea projects, #BSAccelerator calls all Black Sea-based and non-regional applicants to transform #science into future business opportunities🌊

Discover now! ⬇
https://lnkd.in/g85cq-cF

📌 Deadline: 31 October 2023

What is ARSINOE and what are the Open Tenders for Innovations?

ARSINOE is an EU-funded project aimed at creating climate-resilient regions through systemic solutions and innovations. In 2023 the project is launching a series of open tenders to take stock of innovative climate adaptation solutions from across Europe. The aim is to identify promising or mature innovations that can help our case study regions become more climate resilient. Applications will be evaluated and the selected ones can receive up to EUR 50.000 for demonstration activities in the Main River (Germany) and Canary Islands (Spain) case studies, and up to EUR 25.000 in the Albanian demarcation of the Ohrid & Prespa Lakes case study (see more info on our case studies below).

What are the general requirements?

Applicants (innovators) have to be an established legal entity based in one of the eligible countries:  Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Israel, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, UK.

Applicants may be small- or medium-sized, enterprises, start-up companies, spin-off companies, universities or research and technology development institutes, multinationals or subsidiaries/daughter companies, NGOs, and foundations.

Contracting of the innovation is possible without conflicting with the legal requirements that the contracting party is subject to (e.g. those associated with public procurement legislation).

The online application has been submitted before the deadline via the ARSINOE webpage.

The online application form has responses to all questions. Only complete applications will be considered.

Selected innovations are available, and innovators are able to conduct any testing and implementation activities, including respective results reporting, within the period between October 2023 and March 2025. The exact dates and timeline are to be agreed with the contracting party during the contracting phase.

The innovation is relevant to the case study, i.e. it is deemed capable of contributing to addressing the challenge of the case study and to achieving its goals as they are stated in the supplementary materials published with the call.

How will my online application be evaluated?

For the evaluation, an Evaluation Committee is formed with members of ARSINOE consortium (with the leaders and co-leaders of our regional case studies to represent the interests of their stakeholders and independent partners to ensure the transparency and neutrality of the process). The Committee evaluates the applications according to seven pre-defined criteria which include: three types of readiness (Technical, Social, Market) and four qualitative criteria (Testing Feasibility, Innovator Vision, Promising Innovation, and Contribution to Social and Governance Transformation).

ARSINOE Case Studies participating in the first Open Tender

The Main River in Germany, the Canary Islands in Spain, and the Albanian demarcation of the Ohrid and Prespa Lakes are the three case studies participating in this first tender. The items below provide access to the challenge statements and supplementary material that the three case studies have prepared for you to propose your solutions.

Further information 

The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships aim to support the creative and innovative potential of postdoctoral researchers wishing to acquire new skills through advanced training, international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral mobility. Find out more in this videoEN•••. 

Click for more information