Past events

The final conference of the SOPHIE Project which was scheduled for 30 March 2020 in Brussels was cancelled and replaced with a webinar to launch the Strategic Research Agenda for Oceans and Human Health Research in Europe. 

On Friday 14 February 2020, EMB hosted its 4th Brown Bag Lunch to discuss Blue Carbon. Blue Carbon refers to organic carbon that is captured and stored by the oceans and coastal ecosystems.  In particular, the vegetated coastal ecosystems of seagrass meadows, tidal marshes, and mangrove forests sequester and store more carbon per unit area than terrestrial forests and are now being recognised for their role in mitigating climate change. Prof. Hilary Kennedy from the University of Bangor (UK) is one of the leading experts in Europe on this topic and she provided some insight on the latest developments in this field.

The European Marine Board’s Policy Brief N^o6 ‘Navigating the Future V: Recommendations for the Ocean Decade’ will be launched at European Parliament on 19th November, 2019 as part of the 'Key environmental challenges & the role of the Sustainable Development Goals' event. The Policy Brief provides recommendations developed by European experts, as part of Navigating the Future V, to ensure that ocean science supports and guides the implementation of the SDGs, which is the focus of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainability (2021-2030). There is a need for a solutions-oriented, transdisciplinary marine research agenda to address the societal outcomes of the Ocean Decade. An increased use of ocean resources is required to achieve the SDGs and this must be done within the context of protecting biodiversity and ecosystem services to ensure their long-term sustainability. This event is co-organized by the European Bureau for Conservation and Development.

What would the perfect network of biodiversity observatories in Europe look like, what would it be able to achieve, how would it make the lives of Europeans better, and how would it make policy-makers’ work easier? Dr. Matthew Frost, MBA Deputy Director and President of the European Network of Marine Stations (MARS) sparked the conversation on this topic at EMB's 3^rd Brown Bag Lunch Session on Wednesday 2 October at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels.

The European Marine Board Spring Plenary meeting will be hosted by Universities Marines (UM) in Paris, France on 13 June 2019.