A climate neutral, sustainable and productive blue economy Partnership (SBEP)

Framework: Horizon Europe — Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
Programme: Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Theme: Bio-Environment
Destination: Innovative governance, environmental observations and digital solutions in support of the Green Deal
Action type: COFUND actions
Partnership: Climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy (co-funded)
Countries involved: Italy,Romania,Portugal,Spain,Sweden,Cyprus,Finland,Latvia,Lithuania,Norway,Netherlands,Türkiye,Belgium,Germany,Estonia,Faroe Islands,Poland,Denmark,Greece,Iceland,Bulgaria,France,Ireland,Tunisia,Slovenia,Georgia,Ukraine,Malta,Montenegro,Brazil
Call: European Partnership for a climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy (HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01, 2022)
Start date: 2022-09-01
End date: 2031-08-31
Duration (months): 108.0
Total project cost (EUR): 211348237.12
EU funding (EUR): 52856170.5
Participants: 81
Project status: SIGNED

The Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership (SBEP) aims to design, steer and support a just and inclusive transition to a regenerative, resilient and sustainable blue economy, boosting the transformation needed towards a climate-neutral, sustainable, productive and competitive EU by 2030. The SBEP will deliver solutions to strengthen EU and international science-policy interfaces in marine- and maritime-related domains of the EU Green Deal and Digital Europe strategies through aligning national, regional and EU R&I priorities bringing together science, industry, policy and society. It will also contribute to accelerate the post-pandemic recovery and resilience. In line with the EC new approach for a sustainable blue economy in the EU, the SBEP rolls-out impact pathways to: catalyse the transformation of ocean economy value chains; deliver ocean knowledge and impact-driven R&I solutions; cooperate to respond to international, EU and national regulations, recommendations and policy strategies; contribute to the social and digital transition by developing innovative governance frameworks that benefit coastal communities, including by reinforcing skills and enhance ocean observation capacity contributing to EOOS and GEOSS. Together with the EC, 59 partners from 25 countries (MS and AC) in the first phase that raised to 75 partners from 30 countries (MS, AC and TC) in the seoncd phase, will join an unprecedent effort to pool R&I investments, aligning programmes at pan-European scale. The ambition is to launch 6 co-funded calls and implement relevant additional activities such as thematic annual programming, alignemnt of monitoring programmes, sharing of research infrastructures and developing portfolios of projects, over a seven-year timeframe to support R&I joint programming on thematic priority areas of interventions stemming from a co-designed SRIA. The SBEP will also identify additional mechanisms for alignment and look for further economic support of R&I programs leveraging other funding and finance streams. In parallel, a long-term structuring ambition will support the creation of a community of practice, fostering co-creation, coordinating all relevant initiatives at sea-basins/Atlantic ocean level and further promoting the EU blue economy at global level.

Keywords: sustainable blue economy,green deal,digital transition,innovative ocean governance,social transformation