The social and economic challenges of ageing populations and chronic disease can only be met by translation of biomedical discoveries to new, innovative and cost effective treatments. The ESFRI Biological and Medical Research Infrastructures (BMS RI) underpin every step in this process; effectively joining scientific capabilities and shared services will transform the understanding of biological mechanisms and accelerate its translation into medical care. Biological and medical research that addresses the grand challenges of health and ageing span a broad range of scientific disciplines and user communities. The BMS RIs play a central, facilitating role in this groundbreaking research: inter-disciplinary biomedical and translational research requires resources from multiple research infrastructures such as biobank samples, and resources from multiple research infrastructures such as biobank samples, imaging facilities, molecular screening centres or animal models. Through a user-led approach CORBEL will develop the tools, services and data management required by cutting-edge European research projects: collectively the BMS RIs will establish a sustained foundation of collaborative scientific services for biomedical research in Europe and embed the combined infrastructure capabilities into the scientific workflow of advanced users. Furthermore CORBEL will enable the BMS RIs to support users throughout the execution of a scientific project: from planning and grant applications through to the long-term sustainable management and exploitation of research data. By harmonising user access, unifying data management, creating common ethical and legal services, and offering joint innovation support CORBEL will establish and support a new model for biological and medical research in Europe. The BMS RI joint platform will visibly reduce redundancy and simplify project management and transform the ability of users to deliver advanced, cross-disciplinary research.

REDRESS aims to provide a key contribution to the EU commitments towards restoring degraded ecosystems, especially in the deep sea. REDRESS will provide solutions to prioritize future restoration actions, extend deep-sea restoration to previously neglected habitat types, and demonstrate the feasibility, potential, and value for success of deep-sea ecosystem restoration. The project will focus on habitats that have great potential to contribute to carbon sequestration and climate mitigation but have been degraded by deep-sea fishing, especially trawling. Specifically, we will study vulnerable marine ecosystems, including sea pens and bamboo corals on soft sediments, coral gardens, cold-water coral reefs, sponge fields, and cold seeps. REDRESS will map degraded deep-sea habitats and identify habitat refugia to prioritize restoration efforts that will adapt to future scenarios of climate change. To adopt and adapt cutting-edge solutions for both restoration interventions and monitoring, REDRESS will make a significant technological investment and will benefit from a relevant ship time by in-kind contribution (136 days). REDRESS will offer nature-based solutions to public authorities and operators to advance ecosystem restoration in the deep sea. Building on the MERCES experience, REDRESS will go beyond the state of art, either developing new methodologies, using sophisticated technologies, defining success indicators, and expanding the target habitats also to cold seeps. The results will enable a significant advancement in the EU's marine restoration strategy. The project will also provide socio-economic data, protocols, and tools to plan, and upscale restoration interventions in deep-sea habitats. REDRESS will provide novel insights into the advantages and limits of active vs passive deep-sea restoration, and related cost-benefit analysis in different deep-sea habitats supporting policies and decision makers in the future application of the Nature Restoration Law.

Although the Ocean is a fundamental part of the global system providing a wealth of resources, there are fundamental gaps in ocean observing and forecasting systems, limiting our capacity in Europe to sustainably manage the ocean and its resources. Ocean observing is “big science” and cannot be solved by individual nations; it is necessary to ensure high-level integration for coordinated observations of the ocean that can be sustained in the long term. EuroSea brings together key European actors of ocean observation and forecasting with key end users of ocean observations, responding to the Future of the Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative. Our vision is a truly interdisciplinary ocean observing system that delivers the essential ocean information needed for the wellbeing, blue growth and sustainable management of the ocean. EuroSea will strengthen the European and Global Ocean Observing System (EOOS and GOOS) and support its partners. EuroSea will increase the technology readiness levels (TRL) of critical components of ocean observations systems and tools, and in particular the TRL of the integrated ocean observing system. EuroSea will improve: European and international coordination; design of the observing system adapted to European needs; in situ observing networks; data delivery; integration of remote and in-situ data; and forecasting capability. EuroSea will work towards integrating individual observing elements to an integrated observing system, and will connect end-users with the operators of the observing system and information providers. EuroSea will demonstrate the utility of the European Ocean Observing System through three demonstration activities focused on operational services, ocean health and climate, where a dialogue between actors in the ocean observing system will guide the development of the services, including market replication and innovation supporting the development of the blue economy.