Marine biological stations have offered services and biological resources to science for more than a century. ASSEMBLE Plus will provide scientists from academia, industry and policy with a quality-assured programme of Transnational Access (TA) and Virtual Access (VA) to marine biological stations offering a wide variety of marine ecosystems, unique marine biological resources, state-of-the-art experimental and analytical facilities with integrated workflows, historical observation data, and advanced training opportunities. The goal is to stimulate European excellence in fundamental and applied research in marine biology and ecology, thereby improving our knowledge- and technology-base for the blue economy, policy and education. ASSEMBLE Plus brings together 33 marine stations and institutes with modern research infrastructure and track-records of unique service provision from 14 European and associated countries under the leadership of the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC), an ESFRI consortium developed from the previous ASSEMBLE (FP7) partnership. Joint Research Activities involving all partners aim to develop innovative new technologies and/or methodologies to be offered to users through the TA and VA programmes. A coherent series of Networking Activities (NAs) will strengthen the culture of cooperation within and beyond the consortium, providing benchmarks for refined practices of service provision, disseminating interoperable protocols, engaging with novel user communities, and sharing insights into business strategies. The sum of the actions envisaged in ASSEMBLE Plus will ultimately increase the number of users of marine biological stations and shape novel strategic development perspectives, to be based on effective integration and efficient complementarities, resulting in a key contribution to their long-term sustainability.

Climate change and intensifying human resource use are causing massive changes to Subantarctic coastal systems and carbon cycling. At the same time, these systems house benthic communities of highest biomass and biodiversity, which sustain important ecosystem services and require strategic observation and management plans. Although they are just beginning to be appreciated by scientists and public, natural (climate mitigation) and cultural ecosystem services (e.g. local fisheries, tourism, sustainable aquaculture) are already jeopardized by the massive scale and velocity of the regional change in Southern Patagonia (SP) and at the West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP). The multidisciplinary network CoastCarb joins experts in Subantarctic coastal system ecology and ecological modelling to create a knowledge information system with open access data portal and produce dynamic ecosystem models for fjordic and estuarine environments. Using data on carbon budgets and flow (including benthic and pelagic food webs, microbes to megafauna) from across the network, specialists will analyse the relationships between ecosystem services, local stakeholders and communities, to identify barriers and enablers of the sustainable use of marine resources. Study areas along the fragmented SP/WAP coastline are intensively investigated. Data sets from more than 10 recent interdisciplinary research projects of CoastCarb participants, and from the scientific core programmes at coastal stations (ARG-GER Carlini-Dallmann, US Palmer, UK Rothera, PL Arctowski) will be used for knowledge compilation. The established network is based on German, Belgian, Dutch, British, Argentine, Chilean and US participants with new Polish and Canadian partners included. CoastCarb secondments foster capacity building in research and observation for a better understanding of complex ecosystem processes and major hazard scenarios (e.g. harmful algal blooms), and in targeted science stakeholder interaction events.

The MMinE-SwEEPER project will advance knowledge, capability and capacity in Europe for dealing with marine munition in the non-military aspect of UXO-clearance. 21 partners from 7 EU and 2 associated countries bring experience and capabilities from the civil science community (9), military research (3), coast/border guards or EOD-services (4) as well as industry (3) and intergovernmental organizations (2). Jointly they will work in 8 technical work packages to a) advance automated munition detection, identification and data analyzing technologies and software, b) environmental monitoring of chemical contaminants, c) predictions of UXO-burial, contaminants spread and the state-of-corrosion, and will d) enable secure exchange of sensitive data (64% of person months). Three additional WPs will compile existing knowledge, learn about the legal responsibilities and technical approaches, assess remediation and mitigation measures and create training material for building European capacity (14% PM). Two WPs will engage in an intense stakeholder dialog and dissemination/outreach activities by utilizing capacities already existing at HELCOM and JPIO (14% PM). Outcomes with respect to specific technical advancements will include a) AI-supported detection of munition in hydroacoustic spatial mapping data (MBES, SSS; SAS), b) detection of buried munition objects (magnetic, SBP, LF-SAS), c) AI-supported object identification in optical and acoustic cameras and d) implementing trained AI-models into Smart-AUVs and -USVs for adaptive and cooperative mission execution. All this will utilize secure data exchange possibilities through a demonstrator data platform that will be refined during the project. Industry partners see a great benefit in developing technologies that later can be advanced further to become commercial products. At the end of the project most TRLs will be at 5 to 6, meaning they have been applied under real conditions and proved their applicability.

HiAOOS will develop, implement, and validate several ocean observing technologies to improve data collection in the ice-covered Arctic Ocean. A network of multipurpose moorings will be deployed for two years in the deep Nansen and Amundsen Basins. The network will provide point measurements of ocean and sea ice and active and passive acoustic data for several applications, including acoustic thermometry, geo-positioning of underwater floats, detection of marine mammals, geohazards and human generate noise. The mooring system will build on the successful basin wide Coordinated Arctic Acoustic Thermometry Experiment-CAATEX experiment and extend the existing Mooring Observations from the Atlantic Water Inflow Experiment (ATWAIN). A new generation of moorings will be developed where data can be transferred to the surface using ROV or winch technology. Ice buoys with new acoustic array technology will be developed for testing of underwater geo-positioning, local navigation networks for glider operations and for localization of geophysical events. These developments will advance several research infra structures with new observing technology and create new opportunities for forefront research. To unlock the capabilities of the new observing system methods and tools will be developed to analyse and visualize the observations for different applications using digital methods and technologies including machine learning. The methods and tools will be ingested into a digital platform blue Insight, and available through Zenodo. Training and use cases will use the platform to train different user groups associated with research infrastructures, research communities and technology developers. All data, methods and tools will be available following the FAIR principles. Field experiments will be carried out every summer from 2024 to 2026, and every field experiment will be assessed with respect to environemntal impact prior to the start of the experiment.