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European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency
Project

DEEP BLUE

Developing Education and Employment Partnerships for a Sustainable Blue Growth in the Western Mediterranean Region

westmed cooperation

Developing educational and employment partnerships to make sustainable blue growth a reality for local economies in the Western Mediterranean. This is the commitment of the EMFF co-funded project DEEP BLUE.

The Mediterranean area is facing environmental threats related to climate change, growing maritime traffic and pollution, overexploitation of fish stocks and invasion of alien species. Moreover, the regional geopolitical complexity often represents a constraint and an obstacle for taking efficient measures, despite the area shares major opportunities for growth and jobs, such as local biodiversity and deep-sea resources, tourism or renewable energy production.

To strengthen opportunities for Blue Growth, the DEEP BLUE project aimed at encouraging scientific cooperation and knowledge sharing between Western Mediterranean countries, engaging in the geopolitical dialogue, fostering cooperation among public and private stakeholders and reinforcing capacity building for blue career development.

Partners from Italy, Spain and Tunisia worked to develop education and training paths to create an advanced shared knowledge and common methodological ground on key sectors of the Blue Economy, such as the development and sharing of tools for monitoring and assessing environmental impacts of specific maritime activities and the use of marine spatial planning through the ecosystem-based approach.  

You can see DEEP BLUE’s main training activities in this section of the project website, along with related documentation and videos.

With their trainings and mobility initiative, the project reached more than 140 participants, of which more than 50% were female and more than 50% from Southern Mediterranean and Balkan areas. They involved 20 countries, hosting institutions and stakeholders. A wealth of online material and dissemination outputs have been produced, such as the ‘Deep Blue Stories’, contributing to creating a Mediterranean Blue community.

The project integrated the activities set for the 2018-2020 targets of the Western Mediterranean Forum for Higher Education, Research and Innovation (Dialogue 5+5)

Within the framework of the Work Plan of the Tunis Declaration (2017) and the Rome Declaration (2019), the member countries (Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia) acknowledged the role of scientific research and education as a tool for development and an engine for sustainable growth, leading to an economy based on knowledge and innovation, creating jobs and wealth, including building capacities and developing skills on Blue Economy.

Watch DEEP BLUE’s videos and get inspired by their results and achievements.

Stakeholders

Coordinators

Participants