The overall objective of the TASC-RestoreMed programme is to strongly contribute to the Mission Ocean programme “Restore our Seas and Waters by 2030”, forcing a transformative change through the Blue doughnut concept – Phase 2 with: [1] A FSTP programme of 9 million euro supporting 2 types of projects, one type being at the stage of scale-up and deployment of solutions in the Mediterranean Basin and another type on Transition Agendas, being local and regional roadmaps for the Mediterranean Basin to support the solutions scale-up and deployment and legislation development/adaptation for the future. [2] Attracting, engaging and onboarding strong consortia with challenging projects, showing critical mass for scale-up and deployment through an open call organised according to fair, transparent, objective and open principles. [3] Offering technical support measures on relevant topics that suit all projects in TASC-RestoreMed, with a focus on policy/legislation, access to funding and business/impact case and business plan development, realised through feasibility studies, clustering and networking activities, impact assessment, digital tool for funding, access to infrastructure and a variety of more general support activities. All tangible tools developed and used in the programme brought together in RestoreMedTOOLS, for the sake of the programme and for the future. [4] Support Member States/Associated countries national, regional and/or local authorities, as well as all concerned stakeholders, to implement EU legislation related to marine/freshwater ecosystems and reach the biodiversity, pollution and climate targets of the European Green Deal, through Transition Agendas and impact assessments. [5] A vibrant dissemination and communication plan to promote the call for proposals as well as to maximise the visibility of the TASC-RestoreMed programme and the projects within TASC-RestoreMed.

NAUTILOS will fill in existing marine observation and modelling gaps through the development of a new generation of cost-effective sensors and samplers for physical (salinity, temperature), chemical (inorganic carbon, nutrients, oxygen), and biological (phytoplankton, zooplankton, marine mammals) essential ocean variables, in addition to micro-/nano-plastics, to improve our understanding of environmental change and anthropogenic impacts related to aquaculture, fisheries, and marine litter. Newly developed marine technologies will be integrated with different observing platforms and deployed through the use of novel approaches in a broad range of key environmental settings (e.g. from shore to deep-sea deployments) and EU policy-relevant applications: - Fisheries & Aquaculture Observing Systems, - Platforms of Opportunity demonstrations, - Augmented Observing Systems demonstration, - Demonstrations on ARGO Platform, - Animal-borne Instruments. The fundamental aim of the project will be to complement and expand current European observation tools and services, to obtain a collection of data at a much higher spatial resolution and temporal regularity and length than currently available at the European scale, and to further enable and democratise the monitoring of the marine environment to both traditional and non-traditional data users. The principles that underlie the NAUTILOS project will be those of the development, integration, validation and demonstration of new cutting-edge technologies with regards to sensors, interoperability and embedding skills. The development will always be guided by the objectives of scalability, modularity, cost-effectiveness and open-source availability of software and data products produced. NAUTILOS will also provide full and open data feed towards well-established portals and data integrators (EMODnet, CMEMS, JERICO).

"The Erasmus+ project entittled ""Supporting the development of socially-inclusive Blue Challenges in schools in the Mediterranean sea-basin"" (BlueS_Med) aims at developing, testing and evaluating innovative approaches to integrate ocean/marine issues and challenges in the curriculum and educational activties of schools in different Mediterranean countries. With partners from France, Greece, Italy and Malta, combining expertise in education, marine science and policy - along with a strong track record in the development of ocean literacy initiatives for different target groups, the project will be implemented in four phases: - Phase I is a conception phase, focusing on the development of the Blue challenge framework that will guide the development and implementation of Blue Challenges at schools in the following year. It will help also consolidating the consortium and share experiences and practice among partners and countries;; - Phase II focuses on the development of the Blue challenge in thirteen schools associated to the consortium - designing the Blue challenge and developing innovative educational tools and material that wil be required for implementing the Blue challenge. This phase also include the selection of pupil ambassadors in each school (two per school) and the organisation of a transnational training of these pupils' ambassadors (accompanied by their teachers) to train them in the role they will have in communicating and disseminating the Blue Challenge activities and results . - Phase III is the practical implementation of the Blue challenge in the schools with support from partner organisations. It includes also the monitoring and evaluation of the blue school challenge to assess its impact and added value. - Phase IV aims at making a synthesis and disseminating the results of the project to wider audience in each country and the mediterranean sea basin scale, with in particular the organisation of national and Mediterranean Sea basin multiplier events. The project will build on the following principles: (a) co-building - ensuring children/pupils contribute to the co-design of ""their"" Blue challenge - putting co-responsibility and action at the center of their Blue Challenge; (b) interactive and proactive - making use of all e-tools and social medias to support implementation and peer-to-peer exchanges, while giving the priority to ""practical activities"" that give a feeling about the ocean and the human-ocean relationships; (c) inclusive - giving special attention to mobilise children from different social groups, to generate gender unbiased questions and to learning about the principle of democracy (discussing, listening, accepting while being still mobilised) when designing and implementing their Blue challenge; (d) sustainable - ensuring the footprint of the project and of the actions proposed under the Blue Challenge of each school is minimised - and that potential environmental and social ancilary benefits are delivered whenever possible and relevant. The project will deliver five key intellectual outputs (developed in English and translated in French, Italian and Greek - so as to facilitate dissemination within the different partner countries, in the Mediterranean sea basin and at the European scale): - Intellectual output I: The framework and guidance for the Mediterrean Blue challenge processes, (a) building in particular on a benchmarking of existing experiences in ""bringing the sea"" to the classroms and (b) proposing a systematic monitoring and evaluation of the blue challenges implementation so as to assess their added value and benefits; - Intellectual output 2: presenting the proposed Blue challenges for each individual school (13 in total) in terms of concepts, proposed activities, innovative educational material developed, planning and expected ouput- Intellectual output 3, summarising the results of the monitoring and evaluation of the Blue challenges implemented to assess their added value & impacts - Intellectual output 4: A Knowledge base of tested educational material for internalising the ocean in different curricula/education, facilitating its access to different groups so as to ensure the wider use and application in other schools - Intellectual output 5: A road map for supporting the uptake of Blue challenges in Mediterranean Sea basin schools (with specific country-specific annexes)"

Biodiversity is influenced by a wide range of external environmental pressures. Some direct impacts are easy to observe, whereas others are far less obvious and therefore more difficult to understand. In 2008, the EC estab-lished a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy regarding biodiversity: the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, MSFD, which defines a series of 11 qualitative descriptors of Good Envi-ronmental Status (GES). A range of specific pressures are treated within these separate descriptors but most also impact biodiversity in some way. A knowledge-based monitoring strategy is then recommended. Targets for ac-ceptable status, or “GES”, must be set according to the conditions relevant to each area. The overall aim of the Marine Directive is to achieve a sustainable balance between human needs and the natural environment across the European seas. Monitoring all aspects of biodiversity across the whole European seas is neither possible nor an acceptable use of resources. The ecological, socio-economical and patrimonial importance of the Mediter-ranenan coralligenous ecosystem and its variability all around the Mediterranean Sea give the highest priority to its knowledge, understanding and protection for a sustainable use. Moreover, as a coastal system, it is under endlessly increasing pressures. Its complexity and richness of the associated fauna are potential sources for numerous indicators. CIGESMED will design some new tools based on coralligenous for this perspective. Biologically mediated habitats are structured formations on a seafloor provided by marine living organisms alone (often engineer species) or incrusted by inorganic materials of biogenic origin. These habitats can be built by multi-layered aggregations of organisms to form meadows, colonies, banks or beds, mosaics and patches or accumulations of hard structural elements. These complex biological habitats offer a range of favorable hiding places, are vital reproduction and nursery areas, have protein-rich and easily accessible food resources for ben-thic invertebrates and fish, and are easily exploited by humans due to their high biodiversity and species richness. In the Mediterranean Sea, coralligenous and Posidonia meadows are the most important biologically me-diated habitats. They are the main milieu to generate the structural complexity and biodiversity, as well as for the functioning of these ecosystems. Posidonia meadows were extensively studied whereas coralligenous which is a typical hard bottom Mediterranean underwater seascape is comparatively less so. Feldmann (1937) was the first to unequivocally describe the algal composition of the coralligenous and identify the main calcareous algae mak-ing the coralligenous assemblages. Two main different morphologies are traditionally described: banks, over more or less horizontal substrates, and rims, in the outer parts of marine caves and vertical cliffs (Natura 2000 – sheet 1170.14, Barcelona Convention 2007, IV.3.1). This typical coastal benthic Mediterranean environment lies, de-pending of light conditions, from ca. 15 to 130 m depth. It expands in the circalittoral zone and also develops in the infralittoral zone. These assemblages are one of the most important hot-spots of species diversity in the Mediterranean, together with Posidonia oceanica meadows but which are by far more studied. As mentioned by a recent Mediterranean Action Plan-MAP’ working group13, even if an overall knowledge about its composition and distribution in the NW-Mediterranean basin, the distribution of coralligenous populations (lack of maps), their structuring, functioning and threats are important lacunae from the conservation point of view.