Several innovative ocean multi-use (MU) concepts that could contribute to a more sustainable and efficient use of ocean space have been proposed by the scientific and business community. There are yet very few of these MU concepts that are today implemented, mainly due to a lack of knowledge about potential impacts on the economy and the marine environment. MULTI-FRAME aims to increase the knowledge base and capacity of public and private actors for sustainable ocean MU, by providing concrete open source tools, assessment results and best practice examples. Results are expected to encourage relevant actors to systemically consider the MU concept in their planning and assessment practices and to streamline it in relevant ocean policies. Multi-Frame's co-development approach moves beyond the inherent limitations of theoretic research. A generic approach will be co-developed with a wide range of public, private, research and community actors and tested for the assessment of 1) cumulative and in-combination, 2) positive and negative, 3) socio-economic, cultural and environmental impacts of MU. Project will fine-tune this approach by building scenarios together with a wide range of relevant stakeholders in five vulnerable marine areas in Sweden, Mozambique, Norway, France and United States. These case studies will: assess potential impacts based on current evidence; allow for possible MU options to be explored; ensure transferability and adaptability to different environments; consider a multitude of marine sectors and governance systems. The development of the assessment approach and the scenarios will feed into the final product of MULTI-FRAME, the 'Ocean Multi-Use Toolkit', meant to assist planners when deciding on the most optimal combination of uses in a given marine space, taking into consideration an equitable distribution of possible benefits while avoiding, minimizing or mitigating negative impacts. The Toolkit will also aid the decision-making processes of authorities and businesses venturing into offshore activities or developments.

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.