Mission restore our ocean and waters by 2030

A Mission to restore our ocean and waters by 2030

One of the five EU Mission areas is Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030. This Mission aims to protect and restore the health of our ocean and waters through research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments. The Mission will address the water system as a whole, with measurable and quantifiable goals for restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, zero pollution, decarbonisation and emissions reductions.

Following the interim report published in June 2020, the Mission was launched and the Implementation Plan was published alongside this factsheet in September 2021. The plan lays out that the Mission will have been accomplished when quantifiable and measurable goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the EU Action Plan Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Soil and Water and the EU Climate Law have been reached.

Implementation

The Mission will strive to reach these goals by deploying innovative solutions at basin scale, with each basin focusing on a particular area in the developing and piloting phase (2021-2025). The Mission lighthouses are:

Danube river basin: protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity (freshwater)
Atlantic and Arctic coast: protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity (marine)
Mediterranean Sea: prevent and eliminate pollution
Baltic and North Sea basin: make the blue economy carbon-neutral.

Phase two (2026 - 2030) will focus on deployment and upscaling, with the replication of pilot activities. The scale-up actions would be carried out through annual calls for expressions of interest from 2025 onwards to macroregions, regions and communities looking to become Mission scale-up sites.

ERRIN input to Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030

The governance of our oceans and waters is a fragmented framework spread over all levels – from international to local. Regional and local authorities and stakeholders will be an important player in the development and steering to create more coherence and efficient cooperation both in terms of investments and research and innovation agendas.

2020

In July 2020, the Blue Economy Working Group organised a webinar to discuss the development of the Mission with the European Commission and a member of the Mission Board.

2021

Building on the webinar in 2020, ERRIN’s Blue Economy Working Group organised in June 2021 a dialogue together with the Mission Secretariat focusing on the area-based lighthouses proposed in the Mission. The event presented an opportunity for ERRIN members to come together with those working on the Mission and its Implementation Plan to discuss potential lighthouse activities, scale and governance. During the meeting, inspiring examples were presented from ERRIN members including WaterCampus Leeuwarden, North Norway, Mid-Norway, Turku Southwest Finland, Welsh Higher Education, Emilia Romagna and South Denmark.

The report on the dialogue includes ERRIN's key messages on the scale, scope, governance and synergies of the area-based lighthouses within the Mission.

2022

ERRIN provided its input on the Mission Charter in February 2022, which was shared with the Mission Secretariat, and shared its messages for the Horizon Europe Missions Work Programme 2023-2024 in May 2022 where the members' concerns over the rigid and narrow thematic basins of the Mission were raised.

2023

ERRIN has through its Blue Economy Working Group continued the dialogue with the Mission Secretariat. The project tasked with developing the Mission Implementation Support Platform, in which ERRIN is a partner, kicked off in the beginning of 2023.

Latest Updates

By Silvia Ghiretti

1st European Mission Forum (EMiF): "Making Missions Work"

The 1st European Mission Forum will take place as an online event on 25 January 2023.

By Ewa Chomicz

Policy WG meeting: ERRIN input to Horizon Consultation

The first Policy Working Group meeting in 2023 will take place in person at the ERRIN premises on Tuesday 24 January, focusing on the ERRIN input to the currently open Horizon consultation, which is of key relevance for the network. This will be an internal meeting with a fully participatory character, offering the possibility to contribute to the work on the ERRIN input.

By Silvia Ghiretti

Horizon Europe info days - EU Missions

On 17 and 18 January, the European Commission is organising the info days dedicated to EU Missions calls 2023.

By Lucy Hammond

2nd European Mission Network (EMiN) meeting- Making missions work - How to involve regions in the mission implementation process?

Following the Mutal Learning Event, organised jointly by TRAMI (Transnational Cooperation on the Missions Approach) and ERRIN in October, the 2nd European Mission Network (EMiN) meeting Making missions work - How to involve regions in the mission implementation process? is taking place online on 7 December 14:00-16:00.

By Heidi Johansson

Blue Economy WG: Scaling up in Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters

The Blue Economy Working Group is organising an online meeting on the Ocean and Waters Mission on 6 December between 10:00-11:30 CET. The European Commission will give an update on the state of play of the Mission and its next ‘deploying and upscaling’ phase. The PREP4BLUE project will be invited to present their activities in preparing the ground for the Mission and its activities, while the project coordinating the upcoming Baltic and North Sea basin lighthouse will give an overview of their planned work.

By Ewa Chomicz

Restore our waters – Baltic Sea Region perspective

Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian RDI Liaison Offices, and NCBR Poland in Brussels in cooperation with countries' National Contacts Points (NCPs) are organising a series of webinars dedicated to the “Restore our ocean and waters” EU Mission. The first webinar, presenting the state of play of the Mission together with National initiatives, will be held on 17 November.