JPI Oceans New Strategy Framework Officially Launched

  • Science

Developed with JPI Oceans members and co-created with stakeholders, the new Strategy Framework provides a coherent setting for the coming years for efficient and impactful pan-European research and innovation, in support of healthy and productive seas and ocean. It builds on the previous design, vision and scope of JPI Oceans, while also directing the lens towards external European and international developments that have emerged since the adoption of JPI Oceans’ first research and innovation agenda. Welcoming the new Strategy Framework, Dr Niall McDonough Chair of the JPI Oceans Management Board said, ‘Our ocean challenges are too big and too important for any one country to face. JPI Oceans has already demonstrated how it can efficiently bring countries together, align strategies and pool resources to fund cutting edge research & innovation. In our new strategy framework, we have a blueprint to deliver the knowledge and tools we need to safeguard and sustainably use our ocean and its rich resources’.

The new thematic space of JPI Oceans presented in the Strategy Framework has been developed on the basis of the ten thematic areas and three cross-cutting themes of the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda 2015-2020. The areas and themes were moderately modified to align with the latest priorities and framings in the field of marine and maritime R&I. The resulting revised 12 areas were then arranged in a continuous framing of ocean requirements with the three interconnected priority areas (1) Ocean Health, (2) Ocean Productivity, and (3) Ocean Stewardship & Governance.

This moderate repositioning of the strategic areas reduces their distinctness in favour of reflecting openness towards systemic approaches to ocean challenges, such as looking at cumulative effects of pollutants, at multiple impacts of climate change, or at observation and technology developments for environmental improvements. The open thematic space also offers the flexibility to harness converging national interests that contribute to the goals and challenges that lie within the scope of JPI Oceans, through long-term structuring investments and commitments. This mode of operation can complement time-bound programmes with a fixed budget, such as the EU Framework Programme. At the same time the capacity of JPI Oceans to act as first or early mover is ensured by maintaining a pragmatic design of Joint Actions with low bureaucratic thresholds. ‘Having a framework for flexible participation in which our member countries can invest and participate in joint actions they prioritise is key’, said Corinne Muscat-Terribile, Vice Chair of the JPI Oceans Management Board.

An important ambition of the strategy framework is to further strengthen the collaboration of JPI Oceans with EU initiatives, sea basin initiatives, overseas countries, sister JPIs and other partners. To that effect, the JPI Oceans Strategy Framework 2021-2025 provides the strategic basis and the transition to a stand-alone, legal entity (AISBL) ensures the formal status. Accordingly, Dr Joachim Harms, Vice Chair of the JPI Oceans Management Board, concluded that JPI Oceans looks forward to contributing to the United Nation’s Agenda 2030, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and Horizon Europe initiatives like the Sustainable Blue Economy partnership and the Mission on Ocean Seas and waters.

See the programme here.

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