We are pleased to inform you that the Book of abstracts of the International Scientific Conference: “Marine Ecosystems: research and innovations” is published online.

More and more, international organisations, central governments and private companies learn to embrace the power of the local. Deconcentration of political power and economic activity is deemed crucial to unleash hidden economic and social potential, mitigate inequalities and strengthen social and territorial cohesion. At the same time, citizens demand a more tangible level of accountability as centralized structures of power, either national or supranational, are considered distant and faceless.

In this spirit, the Delphi Economic Forum and Patris newspaper are organising the 2nd Olympia Forum, the largest conference in Greece dedicated to local and regional governance and cohesion policy. It will take place on October 20-23, 2021 at Zappeio Megaron in Athens and the International Olympic Academy in Ancient Olympia.

View more information and the topics here

Are you between 16 and 30 years old and do you represent the Black Sea Region? Do you organise conservation activities with children, other young people or a local community? Or maybe you have a project in mind to raise awareness of consumers on sustainable seafood or to use marine resources in the Black Sea sustainably? Or something completely different that you think has the potential to change things in the area?

Then we are looking for you!

The #Youth4Ocean Forum has launched a new call for project proposals, designed to promote the ideas of young change-makers in the Black Sea Region! All across the Black Sea Region, we are looking for young people that either are or would like to develop an ocean-related project and that are keen to become Black Sea ‘Young Ocean Advocates’.

What do you get out of it?

As a Black Sea Young Ocean Advocate, you will have access to exclusive benefits and resources to make a positive change for the Ocean:

• Your project and personal profile will be showcased in the Youth4Ocean Forum section on the Maritime Forum website of the European Commission, and promoted on social media by the EU4Ocean Coalition;
• You will get support and guidance from members of the EU4Ocean Coalition, to help you carry out your activities;
• You will have access to the coaching/mentoring programme of the EU4Ocean Coalition to develop your project and skills;
• You will be invited to participate in the EU4Ocean sea basin events on an equal footing with the EU4Ocean Coalition other members and get the chance to pitch your project and ideas in front of a broad audience;
• You will be able to attend events and network with leading experts, likeminded young people and professionals from all over Europe.
• You will get access to tools and networks to promote ocean literacy in Europe.
• You will be able to participate in EU4Ocean Coalition discussion groups on topics: Food from the Ocean, Climate & Ocean, Healthy & Clean Ocean;
• And last but not least, you will have the possibility to participate in the EU4Ocean final event (to be held in one the EU Member States in 2021/2022), and to win an award for your project.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for all kinds of projects or project ideas that take place in the Black Sea Region or that are somehow linked to the region. You can find more information in the Guidelines which include a handy FAQ section:
• 16–30-year-olds
• From the Black Sea Region / or a project (idea) focusing on the Black Sea Region
• Project (ideas) relevant to Food from the Ocean; Ocean and Climate; Healthy and Clean Ocean
• Project (ideas) relevant to the ocean: focusing on marine education; conservation; research, performing or visual arts; Blue Economy and entrepreneurship; fisheries and aquaculture; maritime transport; coastal tourism; sports; etc.
• Project (ideas) bringing a solution to a marine and/or social challenge, promoting sustainable development, community engagement, good practice and behaviour; etc.

All kinds of ideas to create the Black Sea we want are welcome and there’s no limit to imagination!

Will we see you online on the 5th of November for our Black Sea basin event?

Supported by the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of the European Commission, the #Youth4Ocean and the #EU4Ocean Coalition are organizing the first Black Sea Ocean Literacy Event taking place on the 29th,30th and on the 5th of November 2021.

The event will discuss ongoing activities of the EU4Ocean coalition and its communities in the Black Sea, with a specific focus on marine litter. It will give specific space to the interactions between Black Sea youth ambassadors and Young Ocean advocates, and discussions on bringing the education on the Black Sea into the classrooms with the relevant stakeholders. Kicking off at the Black Sea Action Day with the Ocean Literacy festival activities, launching the projects of the Young Ocean advocates, and finishing with the panel discussions on how to move forward concrete initiatives in the Black Sea (in particular in the topics of marine litter and citizen science) with marine experts, policy makers, youth, educators, and general public and make a movement to make pledges for the MakeEUBlue campaign for making and keeping the Black Sea Blue!

Now what?

Brainstorm – submit your application until the 25th of October 2021!

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

After the second  workshop on  Black Sea Blue Entrepreneurship,  we have prepared a short survey to listen on your opinions!

We would be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to provide your feedback, aiding us to enhance our services and pave the way for future activities to support CMA implementation. The survey is available at the following link:

Survey - Blue Entrepreneurship Workshop Follow-up on Business Ecosystem Support

If there’s anything from the event that you would like to catch up on, you can access speakers’ presentation slides and other materials on the event page: Black Sea Blue Entrepreneurship Workshop.

Many thanks again for your participation in the webinar and see you soon!

Black Sea Virtual Knowledge Centre

The Advanced Master in Sustainable Blue Growth is jointly organized by the University of Trieste and the National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics - OGS. The Master is addressed to researchers, scientists and managers. The aim of the Master is to support the creation of stable and attractive career pathways and highly skilled talents that will be needed to support expanding marine and maritime sectors. The focus of the Master is on strengthening professional skills and enhancing competencies in fields related to the blue economy.

Further information: http://bluegrowth.inogs.it/advancedmaster/information

Apply here: https://inogs.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=49bb9311efd71f3250c9630f6&id=9b1aa15d97&e=d83a5e7a83

The Plastics Policy Inventory is an online public digital depository of plastics policy documents dating as far back as 2000 and is free to all. This inventory is easily searchable by topics, locations, and years, with the option to download documents for reading at users’ own time.

An accompanying report, 20 Years of Government Responses to the Global Plastic Pollution Problem, also provides assessments of the plastic pollution policy landscape over the last two decades, looking at trends and gaps in implementation and identifying effective policies throughout that time period. Together, these resources have proven useful to various researchers, advocacy groups, program implementers, and policymakers.

The call for the Flagship projects promoting a sustainable blue economy through regional maritime cooperation in the Atlantic, the Black Sea and the Western Mediterranean has been just launched.

In particular, in the Black Sea the overall objective is to support of the implementation of the Common Maritime Agenda for the Black Sea, in synergy with SRIA and Black Sea CONNECT project, with the Black Sea assistance Mechanism and the national Hub and with the Virtual Knowledge Centre, as well as with the DG MARE platform BlueInvest.

Specifically the call targets the following objectives:

- Strengthening the capacity of blue economy SMEs and start-ups to identify and tap into potential public/private investors.

- Improving the visibility of investment opportunities in the Black Sea blue economy and capacity of public/private investors to identify SMEs and start-ups.

- Develop stakeholder capacity to establish/enhance concrete cooperation and networking approaches and methods to improve the business environment and strengthen value chains.

- Contributing to the development of a networked, multi-stakeholder blue investment and innovation ecosystem in the Black Sea.

You can find all the details at this link Funding & tenders (europa.eu)

All CMA countries are eligible under the call.

Deadline for the submission is 12 January 2022, 17:00:00 Brussels time.

Using the existing experience gained in previous projects, and in collaboration with industry through linked marine innovation clusters and partners’ existing links to private sector, Black Sea CONNECT will identify the innovation needs and opportunities for healthy and sustainable use of the Black Sea while achieving economic growth by adopting emerging technologies offered especially by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

A critical step for this purpose will be bringing stakeholders from science and research, policy-making, industry, business, and investment together at a thematic workshop or conference on “innovation for sustainability and economic growth in the Black Sea” to enhance communication and collaboration.

The objectives of this workshop will be :

• To identify innovation needs and opportunities including potential gaps and barriers
• To achieve economic growth by adopting emerging technologies

While addressing these objectives, our  approach will be the following :

• Learning from the “others” to organize in the Black Sea region;
• Defining next steps to start organizing the Black Sea innovation ecosystem.

Based on the analysis of the local context and the Black Sea SRIA priorities, the workshop will raise awareness and build capacities on:

• The clustering approach: Enhance communication and collaboration between stakeholders from science and research, policymakers, industry, business and investment to generate innovative products and services.
• Share good practices to support innovation adaptable to the Black Sera context.

It will be based on a comprehensive analysis of innovation needs and opportunities for healthy and sustainable use of the Black Sea while achieving economic growth by adopting emerging technologies offered especially by the Fourth Industrial Revolution[1]. The workshop will also try to identify which are the potential gaps and barriers of all sorts (legal, financial, etc) in the successful development of Blue Growth in the Black Sea countries and will try to find best practice examples that could help smoothen the path forward.

The workshop will pave the way to provide the roadmap for marine innovation and technology transfer to the Black Sea countries, gathering together stakeholders from science and research, policymaker, industry, business and investment and exchanging best practices in between European advanced marine innovation clusters and nascent Black Sea clusters and innovation actors to achieve innovation for blue economy.

To map the innovation needs and potential gaps and barriers, Black Sea CONNECT CSA has launched an online questionnaire in all Black Sea countries targeting the business networks/ actors operating in the Black Sea countries. The questionnaire will feed into the content of the workshop that will take place in early 2022.

The questionnaire is available in all Black Sea languages and English.

[1] http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Harnessing_4IR_Oceans.pdf

Bulgarian 

Georgian 

English 

Romanian 

Russian 

Turkish 

Ukrainian 

The 17th of September, the Commission adopted a proposal for fishing opportunities for 2022 in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. The proposal promotes the sustainable management of fish stocks in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas and delivers on the political commitments made in the MedFish4Ever and Sofia Declarations. It reflects the Commission's ambition for achieving sustainable fisheries in these two sea basins, in line with the recently adopted 2030 Strategy of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM).

Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, said: “Sustainable fisheries management in all of the EU's sea basins is our commitment and responsibility. While we have seen some improvement in recent years in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, we are still far from reaching sustainable levels and more effort is needed to achieve this goal. We are, therefore, today making our proposal for fish catches in the two sea basins fully reliant on scientific advice.” 

In the Black Sea, the proposal includes catch limits and quotas for turbot and sprat. For turbot, the proposal transposes the EU quota decided in the revision of the GFCM turbot multiannual management plan. For sprat, the Commission proposes to maintain the same catch limit as in 2021.

Next steps

The Council of Fisheries Ministers of the European Union will discuss the Commission's proposal in December and establish the allocation of fishing opportunities. The regulation should apply as of 1 January 2022. 

Background

The Commission promotes an enhanced multilateral approach and cooperation to fisheries management in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. The Malta MedFish4Ever and Sofia Declarations established a new governance framework, which was strengthened by the adoption of the new 2030 GFCM Strategy on 9 July 2021.  

The multiannual management plan for demersal stocks in the Western Mediterranean adopted in June 2019, introduced a fishing effort regime for trawlers intended to achieve an overall reduction of up to 40% in five years. In 2020, the first year of its implementation, a 10% reduction was introduced, while the 2021 fishing opportunities proposal resulted in the reduction of a further 7.5%.

GFCM is a regional fisheries management organisation competent for the conservation and management of fish stocks in the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. The GFCM Adriatic plan has reduced demersal fishing effort by 16% in the first two years of implementation. It is set to reach MSY for the key demersal stocks by 2026 by limiting the annual fishing effort on the basis of scientific advice.

In 2017, the GFCM adopted a multiannual management plan for turbot in the Black Sea, the first management and control measures to be implemented at regional level.

For more information

Proposal for a Council Regulation fixing for 2022 the fishing opportunities for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks applicable in the Mediterranean and Black Seas

Read the full news here.

First #CEFEnergy call for 2021-2027 published

The first call under the CEF Energy programme 2021-2027 has been just published. €785 million is made available for studies and works for Projects of Common Interest (PCIs) in the field of trans-European energy infrastructure. CINEA organises an info day on 14 September to present the call, explain its policy context and inform about the application and evaluation process. Another CEF Energy call - for preparatory studies for cross-border renewable energy projects - will be launched in the second half of September.

LIFE Call for proposals 2021 - Q&A sessions

The virtual Q&A session held on 8-9 September gave the opportunity to potential applicants to raise questions on the recently published LIFE Calls for proposals following the recorded information sessions. Participants were able to ask their questions via Sli.do directly to the LIFE team at CINEA.Recordings are already available at the event page. The calls are open for nature and biodiversity, circular economy and quality of life, climate change mitigation and adaptation, clean energy transition and operating grants.

The Kraimorie district in Burgas, Bulgaria, is a community of only 851 souls, known for its long tradition in fishing and fish farming. At the same time, Kraimorie also projects some wider global trends. Worldwide, like in Kraimorie, small coastal communities are struggling to preserve their identity through upholding and developing their centuries’ old livelihoods and tradecraft. Meanwhile, climate change is also making its mark in Kraimorie, as the coastline on which it depends, is suffering from landslip and erosions, caused by progressively more severe storms and flooding. In recent years, thanks to support from the European Union, both these existential issues have been addressed.

At the heart of the solution is a covered boat shelter, constructed with supported from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). The shelter is the first of its kind in Bulgaria and has been built in a pioneering way. The immediate purpose of the shelter is to improve the safety and working conditions for the local small-scale coastal fishing operations, but it has been constructed in such a way as to protect the coastline from erosion.

The shelter has capacity for 54 boats: 10 berths for vessels of 9–12 m, 16 berths for vessels of 6–9 m, and 28 berths for vessels up to 6 m. It includes northern and southern enclosed malls and an area with service facilities and a checkpoint. Research was conducted to identify the best location. Ideally situated between the fishing communities of Kraimorie, Chengene Skele and Pobed, allows for serving the largest possible number of users (between 50-60 fishers are using it at the moment).

The EU-funded facility helps to preserve local fishing traditions and will allow further growth of artisanal fishing. The municipality of Burgas also hopes that the structural improvement will make the area more attractive for maritime tourism and stimulate economic growth. Five new jobs were created for maintenance and guarding of the structure, alone.

But the purpose of the shelter was not only economic: the facility, apart from providing coastal protection from marine erosion and landslips, was built without changing the natural depth of the water (between one and three meters), so as to avoid the damage that dredging could cause to marine creatures and plants living on the sea bed.

The successful shelter project is in line with the objectives of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region: Creating prosperity and supporting fishing communities in the coastal regions by creating new jobs and improving working and safety conditions for the fishers; and environmental protection, restoration and maintenance of water quality and risk management of climate change.