New EMFAF Regional flagship projects just kicked off their work!

The EMFAF Regional flagships call, with a budget of EUR 7.6 million, focused on EU sea basins cooperation, in particular in the Atlantic, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea Region and the EU Outermost Regions. Ten new projects are just kicking off.

As such the call for proposals featured six topics under which projects could apply:

Topic 1: ATLANTIC Diversification of fisheries activities in the Atlantic area

FISATUR  - Atlantic Network of tourist experiences to promote the fishing and maritime cultural heritage

The FISATUR PROJECT is directed to likeminded fishery and tourism sectors to achieve coastal fishing regions´ proper economic growth through the integration and promotion of innovative Atlantic tourist products and services linked to the fishing and maritime heritage. The project will contribute to assess the effectiveness of a fishing tourism model that can help spreading an innovative way to think and use the coastal resources. The best two ideas per country obtained in the incubator will participate in trade mission navigation route from Portugal to France with strategic stops where visits and exchange (B2B) will be held with other network initiatives.

Duration: 28 months - EU contribution: EUR 667 880.21

Topic 2: Harnessing preparedness and response to marine pollution in the Black Sea

Black Sea SIERRA  - Harnessing complementary curricular preparedness via sustainable management in response to civil and military pollution on the coastline, tributaries and lagoons in Black Sea‘s North, West, South zone

The Black Sea SIERRA project will prepare and adapt decision-makers’ response capacity to current/emerging marine pollution, by coordinating cross-border response to armed conflict contamination. The consortium will identify specific types of marine pollution, quantify added marine pollution from armed conflicts, detect novel hazardous substances and map underwater noise pollution to assess the impact/threats on key marine biodiversity (e.g. dolphins). Other available tools include a management plan and training curricula and outputs on armed conflict contribution to marine pollution, a handbook on marine pollution assessment methodology and sources, and training workshops and meetings with decisional stakeholders and policymakers to increase response capacity and to optimize cooperation of Black Sea participant countries.

Duration: 36 months - EU contribution: EUR 599 999.5

RESPONSE - Building Response Frameworks under existing and new Marine Pollution Challenges in the Black Sea

The key objective of RESPONSE is to develop and test new training schemes and curricula for the monitoring, reporting, management and mitigation of marine pollution, with particular attention to pollution caused by armed conflicts. The stakeholders’ societal needs and requirements will drive the co-creation of the framework for the establishment and operation of an advanced training system, which will prioritize the potential environmental risks and the threats to marine and coastal biodiversity of the Black Sea.

Duration: 36 months - EU contribution: EUR 479 803.39

Topic 3 Sustainable transport and ports in the Mediterranean

GREEN MARINE MED  - Mediterranean Green Shipping Network: Linking Ports, Industries, Investment and Innovation for Monitoring and Technology Foresight on Green Shipping in the Mediterranean

GREEN MARINE MED will bring together, engage and mobilise the comprehensive Mediterranean Green Shipping stakeholder community, representing the full value chain including actors from the full vessel community, ports and marinas, fuel and energy, as well as finance, investment, innovation and other stakeholders. The comprehensive Network will create the foundation to enable the most broadly supported and useful Monitoring and Technology Foresight on Mediterranean Green Shipping.

Duration: 24 months - EU contribution: EUR 932 469.91

GreenMED - Green Shipping Pathways Towards a Clean Energy Transition in the Mediterranean

GreenMED is a regionally oriented project aiming to effectively support green shipping efforts in the Mediterranean Sea basin, by promoting plausible scenario-based decarbonisation pathways. The GreenMED's ambition is to contribute directly and actively to the emission targets established by the EU under the 2030 and 2050 milestones. This goal´s realization relies on the comprehension and integration of innovative technologies, taking into consideration the regional ship energy demands, the fuel supply chains in both shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and the variety of emerging green shipping technologies, leading to the establishment of a decarbonisation hub: the Mediterranean Sustainable Shipping Observatory (MSSO).

Duration : 24 months - EU contribution: EUR 740 868

POWER4MED - local emPOWERment of fuel transition FOR a green MEDiterranean

Transition toward carbon neutrality in maritime transport requires short & medium-term solutions, the former based on transition fuels (LNG), the latter on not yet fully available alternative fuels (green hydrogen, methanol, electricity & wind). Dealing with such complexity is difficult for the operators of smaller ships and POWER4MED has the ambition to support them by developing the POWER4MED Supporting Structure, a “Supporting Team” of multidisciplinary experts and a set of toolkits facilitating the path toward carbon neutrality of the 3 sectors targeted by the project: fishing boats, commercial vessels and marinas.

Duration: 18 months - EU contribution: EUR 638 435

Topic 4:  Maritime clusters as an innovative enabler for a Sustainable Blue Economy in the Mediterranean

CALLMEBLUE  - Cluster ALLiance MEd BLUE

CALLMEBLUE aims to strengthen existing maritime clusters alliances in the Mediterranean area in order to accelerate north-south regional cooperation processes towards the emerging of strategic maritime clusters in North Africa area (south-south cooperation). The project will aim to create a strategic vision and transferable models of interregional cooperation, by implementing concrete actions at both local and regional level in order to raise awareness on the relevance of Maritime clusters as key actors for sustainable blue economy policies such as promoting exchange of best practices and knowledge transfer between north and southern area.

Duration: 24 months - EU contribution: EUR 780 987.86

Topic 5: Sustainable maritime and coastal tourism in the Outermost Regions

TWINNEDbySTARS - Unlocking the potential of innovation, circularity, and digitalisation for accelerating new marine-based ecotourism, joint practices, and businesses in outermost regions.

TWINNEDbySTARS aims at converting European Outermost regions into an internationally recognized maritime ecotourism destination, which exploit benefits of tourism for marine biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. The project builds on the success of previous projects in the Macaronesian region, which have built networks and methodological frameworks to co-design and tune up transformational marine eco-tourism products and activities, involving SMEs located on different islands.

Duration: 36 months - EU contribution: EUR 996 630.11

ecoRoute - Multidimensional and integrated approach fostering smart underwater cultural and nature tourism offer in Outermost Regions (OR).

ecoRoute proposes to design and implement a multidimensional and integrated approach fostering smart UW Cultural & Nature Tourism (UCNT) offer in the participating Outermost Regions, enabling their transformation to smart UCNT Destinations, with a new ecological focus that draws on natural and cultural resources, diversifying and developing smart UCNT services for the benefit of both residents and visitors. Their work will span smart and sustainable Strategies and Action Plans, Policymaking & financing, Capacity building, Local Interventions, and Smart eco-tourism packages.

Duration : 30 months - EU contribution: EUR 999 996.15

Topic 6: Regenerative ocean farming in the Baltic Sea Region

COOL BLUE BALTIC  - community Ocean farms and Local Business clusters in the BALTIC sea

COOL BLUE BALTIC will provide concrete examples of ecosystem restoration, viable business models and social innovation in order to reorient future fisher/farmers to diversify their income through regenerative aquaculture (aka ROF). The project will assess the interest and feasibility of setting up new ROF sites via multi-stakeholder co-assessment workshops, co-developing six permanent cooperation frameworks (Key Exploitable Results or KERs) to foster enabling conditions for ROF, and will comprise eight exploitation events in the participating countries around the Baltic. These 6 KERs will instigate a grassroots international movement which puts coastal communities front-and-centre of ecological restoration and regenerative ocean farming efforts.

Duration: 24 months - EU contribution: EUR 599 937.77

The information on the projects is provisional and subject to the final signature of the Grant Agreements

Follow this link if you want to discover other projects on regional flagships