The EurOCEAN 2023 conference took place on 10-11 October 2023 as an in-person event at the Auditorio y Palacio de Congresos Mar de Vigo, Vigo, Galicia, Spain. You can read the full news article on the European Marine Board website.

"One Ocean, One Mission, One Decade - One Voice"

We have set up ambitious objectives to be achieved by 2030 to restore our ocean and waters, and to realize the science we need for this purpose. We are now approaching the middle of the decade, and entering a new phase that goes from mobilization via the Mission Charter and the Ocean Decade Actions, to rally our efforts and work together to see the impact of our collective action, and investigate how we will meet these objectives for 2030. We have One Decade to accomplish One Mission. We need One Voice to achieve the One Ocean we want.

EurOCEAN conferences are major European marine science-policy conferences organized every 4-5 years. They provide a forum for the marine and maritime research community and wider stakeholders to interface with European and Member State policymakers and strategic planners. The aim of the EurOCEAN 2023 science-policy conference was to highlight the synergies between the EU Mission: Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030, other EU research and innovation, and management initiatives, and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. EurOCEAN 2023 attracted marine policy makers, marine scientists, science stakeholders and communicators, maritime industry representatives and European and national decision makers and programme managers, i.e. those that set, manage and implement the marine science agenda.

Conference topics

• Enabling ecosystem-based management for fisheries and conservation
• Addressing pharmaceutical pollution from inland to sea
• Transforming ports at the interface between land, society and the Blue Economy
• Ensuring ocean knowledge in the age of the Digital Ocean
• Changing humanity’s relationship with the ocean: art as agent of change
• Coastal resilience and Blue Carbon in Europe
• What’s next: rallying actions for our Ocean and Waters

Vigo Declaration

On Wednesday 11 October, the Vigo declaration was presented and signed by all EurOCEAN2023 co-organisers. The Vigo declaration "Speaking with One Voice to achieve the One Ocean we want" calls for integrated land-sea policies and management, sustained and better coordinated Ocean observation and increased citizen engagement. Download the Vigo declaration here or pledge your support via this link.

More information

The conference programme and speakers bio's are available here.

Side events and visits happened around those dates outside the main conference organization. The list of back-to-back events is available here.

The EurOCEAN 2023 conference included active involvement in all the sessions of Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOP), as they will be responsible for dealing with the consequences of our actions in 2030. The 1st EMB Early Career Ocean Professional (ECOP) Network Forum was held on 8-9 October 2023 in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The reflections and recommendations from this event on future engagement of ECOPs in the science-policy sphere were presented at the EurOCEAN 2023 conference.

The European Marine Board Members (representing over 10,000 scientists and technical staff in Europe) met on 12-13 October in Vigo to reflect on the outcomes from the EurOCEAN 2023 conference.

Co-organizers and support

The European Marine Board (EMB), together with the Technology Centre of the Sea (CETMAR), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) through the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC) and the Institute of Marine Research (IIM-CSIC) and the European Commission are co-organizing the EurOCEAN 2023 conference to take place on 10-11 October 2023 in Vigo, Spain. The conference has been added to the calendar of events of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU (July-December 2023).

The conference was co-organized with the Joint Programming Initiative on Oceans (JPI Oceans), the European Marine Research Network (EuroMarine), the European Global Ocean Observing System (EuroGOOS) and the European Centre for Information on Marine Science and Technology (EurOcean). This event was also supported by the European Union Innovation Actions EuroSea and EcoScope, he European Fisheries Control Agency (ECFA), the Centre for Marine Research of the University of Vigo (CIM-UVigo), the Campus do Mar, the Regional Government of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia), the Governing Board of CETMAR, the Marine Institute, the Council of the City of Vigo (Concello de Vigo), the Port of Vigo, and industry associations CONXEMAR and ANFACO.

Conference photographer

A conference photograph took photos of the in-person attendees during the conference. Please note that any pictures or footage taken may be used by EMB online, on social media and in future EMB publications.

If you have any questions, please contact the EMB Secretariat at info@marineboard.eu.