Scope of the Mission
This Mission tackles one of our most pressing challenges-restoring the health of the ocean, seas, and inland waters-by 2030. Through research and innovation, public engagement, and targeted blue investments, this Mission takes a systemic approach to:
- protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, in line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030
- prevent and eliminate pollution of our ocean, seas and waters, in line with the EU Action Plan Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil
- make the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular, in line with the proposed European Climate Law and the comprehensive vision outlined in the Sustainable Blue Economy Strategy
To ensure implementation across Europe, and beyond, the Mission operates through area-based “lighthouses” in major sea and river basins: Atlantic-Arctic, Mediterranean Sea, Baltic-North Sea, and Danube-Black Sea. These lighthouses are living labs for demonstrating, deploying and scaling up solutions.
A central part of the Mission is the Mission Charter, which invites Member States, regions, cities, and stakeholders to pledge concrete actions that support the Mission’s objectives, with over 1,000 pledges already contributing to the Mission, and a dedicated Mission Portal which enables progress tracking, knowledge sharing, and access to funding and partnership opportunities.
Supporting the digital transition, the Mission is also developing a Digital Twin Ocean, an innovative, virtual representation designed to integrate a vast array of data and simulate the effects of different actions on marine and freshwater ecosystems and predict future scenarios. This cutting-edge tool will enable real-time monitoring, predictive analysis, and better-informed decision-making for sustainable management of marine and freshwater ecosystems across Europe.
The Mission engages and empowers a wide range of stakeholders, public and private organisations, national, regional and local actors, coastal, riparian, islands communities, businesses, and citizens to actively participate in shaping the future of Europe's marine and freshwater ecosystem.
More information
- Mission Implementation Platform (MIP): Access resources, data, and tools to support regions and local authorities in their journey
- Newsletter Subscription: Stay updated by subscribing to the Mission's newsletter
- Funding and Tenders Portal: Explore funding opportunities and open calls related to the mission
- The Monitoring Dashboard: Check the progress of Mission implementation to date
Contact
For enquiries related to the EU Mission Ocean and Waters, please contact:
EU-MISSION-OCEAN-AND-WATERS
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (EU-MISSION-OCEAN-AND-WATERS[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)
Documents
From research and piloting to large scale deployment and upscaling across European ocean and waters.
Developing a growth blueprint for Mission Ocean and Waters solutions
