The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) has joined the EU4Ocean Platform as a founding member. As research, monitoring and communication on the marine world are important activities of RBINS, this was a logical step. In the EU4Ocean Platform, RBINS will engage and collaborate with organisations and initiatives of various kinds and mobilise its efforts in the field of ocean literacy. The founders of the EU4Ocean Platform met for the first time on 18 June 2020 and were officially presented on 2 July 2020.
The ocean is a source of life for human beings. It gives us food, oxygen and energy. It is home to many species and acts as climate regulator. Understanding how we influence the ocean and how the ocean influences us is at the core of ocean literacy. This understanding allows us to make responsible choices to better protect our ocean and to use the opportunities it offers in a sustainable manner. This is what we are striving for in Europe, contributing to the improvement of the well-being of Europeans, as envisioned and recently confirmed in the European Green Deal.
The European Ocean Coalition (EU4Ocean) connects diverse organisations, projects and people that contribute to ocean literacy and the sustainable management of the ocean. Supported by the European Commission, this bottom-up inclusive initiative aims at uniting the voices of Europeans to make the ocean a concern of everyone!
The EU4Ocean Platform
The EU4Ocean Platform is one of the three key components of the EU4Ocean coalition (for other components, see Youth4Ocean Forum and Network of European Blue Schools).
The EU4Ocean Platform will be a focal point for organizations and initiatives to connect, collaborate and mobilize efforts on ocean literacy. It will offer a dynamic topic-oriented working environment that stimulates collaboration, exchange of practices and dialogue across the many different target groups leading to the creation of new ocean literacy partnerships and innovative actions, co-designed by organizations and youth.
The EU4Ocean Platform objectives
- Consolidate and build on existing initiatives in ocean literacy spanning different stakeholder sectors;
- Connect disparate and diverse stakeholders acting in ocean literacy to form an inclusive ocean literacy community network that stimulates an environment of concrete actions and commitments to create an ‘ocean-literate generation’;
- Jointly identify in topic-oriented groups best opportunities in ocean literacy activities that can be scaled up to larger campaigns to raise awareness in wider society (the first working groups will focus on ‘Climate and Ocean’, ‘Food from the Ocean’ and ‘Healthy and Clean Ocean’);
- Ensure the Youth are an integral and active part of ocean literacy activities;
- Act as a focal point for the European Ocean Literacy community for the preparatory planning to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and in particular its ocean literacy components; and
- Build momentum for EU4Ocean to ensure growth and spreading of the initiative beyond the project lifetime.
Members of the EU4Ocean platform can expect to gain visibility, added value and impact for their existing activities. Activities can also be increasingly connected and contribute to the growing European movement in ocean literacy. Members also get the chance to contribute to the central focal point for collaborative dialogue and action in Ocean Literacy in Europe (the EU4Ocean Coalition), and to work with other organisations and individuals. This could potentially lead to the formation of new partnerships and/or innovative methods, the exploration of diverse funding opportunities and the upscaling of ocean literacy activities into campaigns.
Launch of the EU4Ocean Coalition
On June 8th, 2020, the first Virtual Ocean Literacy Summit was organised on the occasion of the World Oceans Day. There was no better chance to officially launch and celebrate the EU4Ocean coalition and its dedication to ocean literacy, together with Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, and IOC-UNESCO. Because of the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting took place virtually to officially announce and celebrate this launch and share ideas and perspective for the protection of our blue planet.
Founding Members of the EU4Ocean Platform
The founding members of the EU4Ocean Platform, including the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, met a first time in an online meeting on 18 June. In this meeting, the participants expressed their motivation to work with each other to advance ocean literacy and develop concrete activities that will create real awareness, engagement and momentum across society for action and change. The EU4Ocean Platform brings together a wide diversity of stakeholders spanning the areas of marine research, science-policy, blue economy industry and the private sector, civil society, arts, education, youth and media. This includes multiple scales from local and national organisations to regional sea and European initiatives. In the next step, the members will be co-designing EU4Ocean events coming up on 24-25 September.
The final list of founding members of the EU4Ocean Platform – no less than 76 of them – was officially announced on July 2nd, 2020.
