The Microbial Ecology Centre in Lyon, France has an open PhD position within the context of REST-COAST. Find the full announcement here.

As you know, Black Sea Ambassadors have been carrying out local and regional awareness-raising campaigns to empower youth for Black Sea-literate societies through workshops, field trips, video blogs and more.  

Based on this, one of our ambassadors, Oana Poiana, has been organizing an umbrella photography contest named "Visual Storytelling of The Black Sea" as her campaign, open to everyone, in order to increase its impact and reach more participants.

The deadline is September 6, 2022, with a possible extension. We will be glad if you can help her and all young ambassadors by sharing the photography contest announcement and reaching broader participants through your channels. 

Read More

You can find the announcement and social media links below.

Website: Visual Storytelling of The Black Sea:Different Shores, Different Reflections, and One Sea | Black Sea Connect (connect2blacksea.org)

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackSeaYouth/status/1558048979446910983?s=20&t=NYjs6LpRM2B7mcU36b-yXw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/108144418031057/posts/pfbid0roiJL3cXshBeSGoXmqPa9xCcs31fDySBuGNLtZpsPVxJs9XMk7my7d5C6aRCAPg2l/?d=n

Instagram: Black Sea Young Ambassadors (@blackseayouth) • Instagram photos and videos

In order to upskill and ensure the understanding of the challenges and opportunities to be addressed for a sustainable Blue Economy across the Black Sea, BRIDGE-BS conducts a range of educational and capacity-building activities. With this aim, a summer school is organized by targeting graduate students from the Black Sea riparian countries on 23-25 August 2022 (for a total of 4 days, including the arrival day), hosted by one of the facilities of the Istanbul University (IU).

The courses provided during the summer school will cover the main aspects related to the Black Sea ecosystem and six prominent economic activities for a sustainable Blue Economy in the Black Sea [marine living resources (fisheries and aquaculture), transport, tourism, energy, and biotech.

Objectives 

1. Equip graduate students with theoretical and practical skills to address issues faced by a sustainable Blue Economy in the Black Sea with a specific focus on the Blue Economy initiatives and key actors existing in the region (Common Maritime Agenda for the Black Sea, Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda Black Sea Commission and Black Sea Economic Cooperation),
2. Diversify possible career pathways for the next generations of practitioners in the sectors,
3. Widen next generation’s comprehension and appreciation of fundamental marine ecosystem functioning, challenges, and opportunities for its preservation,
4. Learn about opportunities in sustainable innovation and policy support across relevant marine and maritime sectors in the Black Sea as well as other EU sea basins,
5. Foster professional and educational networks and international partnerships that can improve activities in support of sustainable blue growth,
6. Stimulate actions for preservation and sustainable exploitation of the Black Sea ecosystem,
7. Improve professional skills for the development of the marine and maritime sectors in the Black Sea, as well as ocean governance, in support of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Date and Venue
23-24-25 August 2022 at Istanbul University in Istanbul, Turkey

Application 

1. Fill out an online application form
2. Submit an up-to-date CV or resume that shows your educational background and work experience
3. Provide a statement of support from the student’s institution/university
4. Deadline: 30 June 2022

Fees, Costs, and Visa

1. All selected participants will attend the summer school free of charge and in person.
2. Selected participants’ accommodation (4 nights in shared dormitories: 2-people of the same gender), lunches, and some dinners will be covered by Istanbul University.
3. Subsistence costs in Istanbul for the duration of the training, are borne by the participants.
4. All participants are responsible for complying with the entry requirements to Turkey. Participants who need to be in possession of a visa should organize their visa procedure and cover the costs of granting it. Istanbul University and BRIDGE-BS Project support the accepted candidates with an invitation letter.
5. Accommodation and travel arrangements will be organized by Istanbul University for the selected students.

Selected applicants will receive confirmation and further practical details. Please do not make any travel arrangements before you receive the confirmation email.

Requirements
Candidates should fulfill the following conditions:

1. Only graduate students o any discipline related to the Blue Economy (economy, research, and/or policy) will be considered;
2. Candidates should be graduate students from Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Moldova, Turkey, and Ukraine; 
3. Candidates should have a good working knowledge of English (level B2 or higher);

Please note that: we offer introductory lessons on the main concepts and practices related to the sustainable blue economy and the themes relevant to the Black Sea region. This year, the summer school will focus on the following blue economy topics: marine living resources fisheries and aquaculture, transport, tourism, energy, and biotechnology as well as introduction classes: Introduction to Oceanography, Resilience of Ecosystems, Policy Framework.

Full accommodation, travel, and catering expenses of the summer school participants will be covered by Istanbul University.

APPLY NOW! 

In the framework of the H2020 DigiPrime project (Digital Platform for Circular Economy in Cross-sectoral Sustainable Value Networks) –  a new digital platform is under development, to accelerate the process of identifying cross-regional and cross-sectoral circular value chains, monitoring material flow and analysing the legislative landscape and barriers to addressing for the implementation of a more resilient economic system.

With the long-term view to offering Regions a comprehensive and fruitful service experience, Veltha, in partnership with DigiPrime and REPLACE, are hosting an EU Circular Economy Summer School.  

This one-week intensive training will guide participants through a 360° journey into the methodologies, strategies and tools that will enable everyone to set up a circular economy strategy for different Regions.

This Summer School is targeted only at regional officers, regional development agencies, or representatives of regions acting on behalf of them.

It will be delivered in lectures and workshops to understand the current circular economy landscape and the right expertise to master supportive tools to streamline the shift towards a more resilient economy.

This first edition of the Summer School will be held in Rome from Monday 11th to Friday 15th of July 2022 and will be completely free, with daily lunch and coffee break included. Accommodation, travel costs and other meals will not be part of the package and will have to be provided at your own expense.
 

You will find more insightful information in the following REGISTRATION FORM: https://tinyurl.com/velthasummerschool.

BRIDGE-BS aims to advance the Black Sea’s marine research and innovation to co-develop Blue Growth pathways under multi-stressors for the sustainable utilization of the ecosystem services. To do so it will develop an ecosystem-based management framework to enable policy uptake and foster citizen engagement. To this end BRIDGE-BS will try to establish an Ocean Literature Network that:

1. It will be built to develop ownership and stewardship for the protection of the Black Sea. 
2. This Network will bring together marine scientists, educators, and ocean professionals.
3. It will serve a knowledge base for anyone who is enthusiastic and curious about the Black Sea. 

The Ocean Literacy concept was introduced in Europe a decade ago. However, many organizations and individuals in the Black Sea countries have a longer history of teaching about their sea and engaging communities. Information about such teaching and engagement activities, which we collectively refer to as the Ocean Literacy Initiatives, is sporadic and hardly obtainable because it has never been inventoried consistently. Lack of information on Ocean Literacy Initiatives at the Black Sea Basin precludess effective collaboration and sharing of best practices among educators. To address this issue, EMSEA is working, as part of the BRIDGE-BS project, on inventorying, documenting and mapping ongoing and recent Ocean Literacy projects and initiatives in the Black Sea Basin that began in 2012 or later. Based on identified Ocean Literacy projects and initiatives we will build the Black Sea Literacy Network, through various team-building and stakeholder engagement strategies. 

You can find more inforamtion here!

Virtual Blue Career Center is a digital platform designed to attract young people but also experienced workers to fill existing skill gaps by supporting activities that will increase awareness of the workforce and employability in key Blue Growth services.

It promotes the blue economy as an opportunity for professional development and education for young future professionals and people already working in one of the blue economy sectors.

Please follow BRIDG-BS VBCC web page to keep you ud to date!

Dear stakeholders,

Please find a number of interesting open PhD and postdoctoral fellows on the maritime sector with prestigious regional institutions:

· BRIDGE-BS Blue Growth Ph.D. program, METU, IO-BAS, Georgia (4 different positions) http://bridgeblacksea.org/index.php/2022/01/10/call-for-ph-d-position-within-bridge-bs-project/

· Postdoctoral fellow on chemical oceanography, METU-IMS, https://ims.metu.edu.tr/postdoctoral-fellow-chemical-oceanography

· Postdoctoral Fellow on Marine Ecosystem and Biogeochemical Modelling, METU-IMS, https://ims.metu.edu.tr/postdoctoral-fellow-marine-ecosystem-and-biogeochemical-modelling

· Community and Stakeholder Engagement Expert, METU-IMS, https://ims.metu.edu.tr/community-and-stakeholder-engagement-expert 

Kind regards,

The Global Climate Forum (GCF) in Berlin is a non-profit transdisciplinary research institute founded by noble laureate Klaus Hasselmann in order to bring together different public, private and civil society parties concerned with climate change and carry out joint studies that support environmental policies. The Research Process Adaptation and Social Learning (ASL) at GCF conducts internationally leading work on the economics and governance of coastal adaptation to sea-level rise from local to global scales. The process is led by Dr. Jochen Hinkel, who co-leads work on coastal adaptation in the United Nations World Climate Research Programme and has been Lead Author on coastal/marine governance in the last two Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In the context of two new large-scale collaborative European Research projects on coastal nature-based solutions (REST-COAST) and the economics of climate change and biodiversity (DECIPHER), ASL is seeking a PhD student to work on a global economic assessment of coastal nature-based solutions (NBS) such as maintaining and restoring coastal wetlands (e.g., salt marshes and mangrove forest). Coastal wetlands are hotspots of marine biodiversity, sequester large amounts of carbon, and protect hundreds of million people­ globally from coastal flooding. At the same time, they are being converted into agricultural or industrial land at alarming rates of 1-3% annually, releasing large amounts of carbon. Sea-level rise is expected to exacerbate this situation, if the inland migration of wetlands continues to be hindered by human infrastructure, settlements and dikes. The PhD student will advance an existing global model of sea-level rise, coastal flooding and wetland dynamics (Schuerch et al. 2018 and Hinkel et al. 2014) to investigate the economic trade-offs between coastal development, coastal protection through hard infrastructure (e.g. dikes) and wetland conservation and restoration. The work entails close collaboration with other PhD students modelling the biophysical response of coastal wetlands to sea-level rise and scholars working on the economics of biodiversity and climate change. The PhD would be obtained from the Division of Resource Economics at the Thaer Institute of Humboldt University in Berlin, where Hinkel is an external professor (Privatdozent). A salary will be paid following German university standards (65 % position) for three years in which the PhD thesis should be completed, with the possibility of extension.

The successful candidate is expected to have:

1. An excellent Master degree in economics, environmental economics or related fields (e.g., ecological economics, resource economics)
2. Excellent command (oral and written) of English (the language of the PhD thesis)
3. A good command of a major programming language (e.g. Java, Python, R, Julia)
4. Familiarity with cost-benefit a­nalysis, econometric and optimisation methods

We offer the opportunity to work in a high-profile, internationally recognized research institute within a global network of leading researchers on social and economic aspects of climate change and environmental issues. The successful candidate will join a friendly and highly motivated team in central Berlin (within the Mercator Center) and will benefit from a flexible, dynamic working environment, close cooperation within our team, attentive PhD supervision and flat hierarchies. The Global Climate Forum is an equal opportunity employer. We thrive for diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from all qualified applicants.

The deadline for applications is 24 April. Please send your application including a motivation letter, a copy of transcripts and certificates, a complete CV, your Master thesis, as well as names, email addresses and telephone numbers of two possible referees as a single PDF file with the subject “PhD economics of wetlands” to Dr. Daniel Lincke (daniel.lincke@globalclimateforum.org). For further information please also contact Dr. Lincke.

In view of the latest developments in the Black Sea region, and following the request of the Donor (European Commission), the Final Conference on "Strengthening the project implementation capacity, dialogue and cooperation in the Black Sea Region", in the framework of the Black Sea React!, Black Sea Cruise and CulTourE4Youth projects, scheduled for 15 March 2022, in a hybrid way, in Istanbul-Turkey, has been postponed.

The event will be rescheduled and the new date will be announced in due course.

Thank you for the understanding.

Are you a scientist working in the Black Sea?

Are you interested in understanding more about the Black Sea ecosystems?

Are you a policymaker delivering for Black Sea communities?

Do you want to start a ‘Blue Business’ in the Black Sea?

Then this questionnaire is for you!

WP3 of DOORS team have just produced a first stakeholder survey on designing a System of Systems (SoS) for the Black Sea. This will be a harmonised data platform for the entire region that we hope will transform the fortunes of damaged ecosystems and stimulate the blue economy. 

We are looking for Scientists, policymakers and business people who work with Black Sea data to complete the survey to help us tailor the SoS to their needs.

Webpage for more info: https://www.doorsblacksea.eu/sos_survey

Survey Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/DOORS_Survey2022

Please check out a recent publication on supporting multi-use of the sea with maritime spatial planning in Bulgaria. Multi-use is becoming a big opportunity for sustainable blue economy considering the expanding human uses of sea space!