Recreational SCUBA divinga has become a mass leisure activity engaging millions of divers worldwide. The diving industry generates large direct and indirect revenues for coastal communities and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Other benefits linked to diving include the promotion of ocean stewardship, contribution to scientific research, fostering social inclusion and personal development. Yet, diving has also negative impacts, due to damage or disturbance of marine habitats and organisms and to conflicts with local communities for the access to/use of the same resources, equity issues, or cultural clashes. These aspects clearly relate to the three pillars of sustainability, covering environmental, economic and social dimensions and can only be addressed by a systemic approach. The central objective of GREEN BUBBLES is to maximise the benefits associated with diving while minimising its negative impacts, thus achieving the environmental, economic and social sustainability of the system. This will be done by: 1) Carefully assessing and modelling the system itself; 2) Developing innovative products based on the issues and needs highlighted by assessment and modelling; 3) Promoting the uptake of such products by the system designing tailored business models and marketing plans. Direct engagement with selected stakeholders (divers, professionalsb, diving operators, certification agencies - CAs, MPAs, NGOs) will ensure relevant feedback throughout the project’s lifetime, as well as effective uptake of results at the end of the project. Cutting across sectors and disciplines, and engaging participants from 3 continents, GREEN BUBBLES will put the European diving system in focus thanks to dedicated R&I with, about and for the European diving industry and will take advantage of parallel comparative work on the much more studied coral reef diving system.

The objective of SponGES is to develop an integrated ecosystem-based approach to preserve and sustainably use vulnerable sponge ecosystems of the North Atlantic. The SponGES consortium, an international and interdisciplinary collaboration of research institutions, environmental non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, will focus on one of the most diverse, ecologically and biologically important and vulnerable marine ecosystems of the deep-sea - sponge grounds – that to date have received very little research and conservation attention. Our approach will address the scope and challenges of EC’s Blue Growth Call by strengthening the knowledge base, improving innovation, predicting changes, and providing decision support tools for management and sustainable use of marine resources. SponGES will fill knowledge gaps on vulnerable sponge ecosystems and provide guidelines for their preservation and sustainable exploitation. North Atlantic deep-sea sponge grounds will be mapped and characterized, and a geographical information system on sponge grounds will be developed to determine drivers of past and present distribution. Diversity, biogeographic and connectivity patterns will be investigated through a genomic approach. Function of sponge ecosystems and the goods and services they provide, e.g. in habitat provision, bentho-pelagic coupling and biogeochemical cycling will be identified and quantified. This project will further unlock the potential of sponge grounds for innovative blue biotechnology namely towards drug discovery and tissue engineering. It will improve predictive capacities by quantifying threats related to fishing, climate change, and local disturbances. SponGES outputs will form the basis for modeling and predicting future ecosystem dynamics under environmental changes. SponGES will develop an adaptive ecosystem-based management plan that enables conservation and good governance of these marine resources on regional and international levels.

The project MERCES is focused on the restoration of different degraded marine habitats, with the aim of: 1) assessing the potential of different technologies and approaches; 2) quantifying the returns in terms of ecosystems services and their socio-economic impacts; 3) defining the legal-policy and governance frameworks needed to optimize the effectiveness of the different restoration approaches. Specific aims include: a) improving existing, and developing new, restoration actions of degraded marine habitats; b) increasing the adaptation of EU degraded marine habitats to global change; c) enhancing marine ecosystem resilience and services; d) conducting cost-benefit analyses for marine restoration measures; e) creating new industrial targets and opportunities. To achieve these objectives MERCES created a multi-disciplinary consortium with skills in marine ecology, restoration, law, policy and governance, socio-economics, knowledge transfer, dissemination and communication. MERCES will start from the inventory of EU degraded marine habitats (WP1), conduct pilot restoration experiments (WP2, WP3, WP4), assess the effects of restoration on ecosystem services (WP5). The legal, policy and governance outputs will make effective the potential of marine restoration (WP6) and one dedicated WP will assess the socio-economic returns of marine ecosystems’ restoration (WP7). The transfer of knowledge and the links with the industrial stakeholders will be the focus of WP8. The results of MERCES will be disseminated to the widest audience (WP9). The project will be managed through a dedicated management office (WP10). MERCES will contribute to the Blue Growth by: i) improving the EU scientific knowledge on marine restoration, ii) contributing to EU Marine Directives; iii) implementing the Restoration Agenda, iv) enhancing the industrial capacity in this field, v) increasing the competitiveness of EU in the world market of restoration, and vi) offering new employment opportunities.