EU Mission Explained: ‘Restore Our Ocean and Waters by 2030’
The Mission
This mission aims to protect and restore the health of our ocean and waters through research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investments. The Mission’s new approach will address the ocean and waters as one and play a key role in achieving climate neutrality and restoring nature.
The Mission aims to reach these goals by deploying innovative solutions at basin scale, with each basin focusing on a particular area in the developing and piloting phase (2021-2025). The Mission lighthouses are:
Danube river basin: protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity (freshwater)
Atlantic and Arctic coast: protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity (marine)
Mediterranean Sea: prevent and eliminate pollution
Baltic and North Sea basin: make the blue economy carbon-neutral.
Phase two (2026 - 2030) will focus on deployment and upscaling, with the replication of pilot activities. The scale-up actions would be carried out through annual calls for expressions of interest from 2025 onwards to macroregions, regions and communities looking to become Mission scale-up sites.
C-FAARER is focusing on Lighthouse number 2: Atlantic and Arctic coast in phase 1 as C-FAARER aims to define the feasibility and market potential of regenerative ocean farming before scaling up.
Horizon Europe
The EU Missions are part of Horizon Europe: the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of €95.5 billion.
It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth.