EurOCEAN Conference 2023

"One Ocean, One Mission, One Decade - One Voice"

We have set up ambitious objectives to be achieved by 2030 to restore our ocean and waters, and to realize the science we need for this purpose. We are now approaching the middle of the decade, and entering a new phase that goes from mobilization via the Mission Charter and the Ocean Decade Actions, to rally our efforts and work together to see the impact of our collective action, and investigate how we will meet these objectives for 2030. 

EurOCEAN conferences are major European marine science-policy conferences organized every 4-5 years. They provide a forum for the marine and maritime research community and wider stakeholders to interface with European and Member State policymakers and strategic planners. The aim of the EurOCEAN 2023 science-policy conference is to highlight the synergies between the EU Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030, other EU research and innovation, and management initiatives, and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. EurOCEAN 2023 will attract marine policy makers, marine scientists, science stakeholders and communicators, maritime industry representatives and European and national decision makers and programme managers, i.e. those that set, manage and implement the marine science agenda.

Conference topics

• Enabling ecosystem-based management for fisheries and conservation
• Addressing pharmaceutical pollution from inland to sea
• Transforming ports at the interface between land, society and the Blue Economy
• Ensuring ocean knowledge in the age of the Digital Ocean
• Changing humanity’s relationship with the ocean: youth and art as agents of change
• Resilience of coastal cities (tbc)
• What’s next: rallying actions for our Ocean and Waters

Surrounding Program

The draft conference programme is now available on the conference website. Other events and visits will happen around those dates outside the main conference organization. 

The EurOCEAN 2023 conference will have active involvement in all the sessions of Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOP), as they will be responsible for dealing with the consequences of our actions in 2030. The 1st EMB Early Career Ocean Professional (ECOP) Network Forum will be held on 8-9 October 2023 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The reflections and recommendations from this event on future engagement of ECOPs in the science-policy sphere will be presented at the EurOCEAN 2023 conference.

The European Marine Board Members (representing over 10,000 scientists and technical staff in Europe) will meet on 12-13 October in Vigo to reflect on the outcomes from the EurOCEAN 2023 conference.