The Mission

EU Missions are a new way to bring concrete solutions to some of our greatest challenges. They have ambitious goals and will deliver concrete results by 2030. They put research and innovation into a new role, combined with new forms of governance and collaboration, as well as by engaging citizens.

The five missions set by the EU are on Adaptation to Climate Change, Cancer, Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities, Restore our Ocean and Waters, and A Soil Deal for Europe.

Among the missions, "Restore our Ocean and Waters" 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.

Cross-cutting enabling actions will support this objective, in particular broad public mobilisation and engagement and a digital ocean and water knowledge system, known as Digital Twin Ocean.

The Digital Twin Ocean is a replica of our oceans to help us understand predict the impacts of human pressures and climate change. This powerful tool draws on Europe's advanced data resources providing access to data from assets like the European Marine observation and Data Network and Copernicus, the European Earth Observation programme.

The EU Mission "Restore our Ocean and Waters" in its quest to protect and restore aquatic ecosystems, prevent and eliminate pollution, and make the blue economy climate -neutral and circular through research and innovation, citizen engagement and blue investment has setup four area-based “Lighthouses“ in major sea/river basins: Atlantic-Arctic, Mediterranean Sea, Baltic-North Sea, and Danube-Black Sea that act as hubs to develop, demonstrate and deploy new solutions, far and wide, and guide us in our journey to restoring our oceans and waters. In particular the "Mediterranean Lighthouses", works towards a healthy and pollution free Mediterranean Sea.

The Mediterranean Sea accounts for about 7,5% of the world marine biodiversity and 15% of the global maritime traffic, yet it is one of the most polluted seas in Europe. Restoring and protecting the Mediterranean and its waters from chemical pollution is one of the most urgent challenges of our time. This consideration arises from the fact that today, at every stage from 'source to sea,' the entire water cycle is under pressure like never before. Decades of pollution and unsustainable use have severely degraded the condition of marine ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea.

In light to this, the RHE-MEDiation lighthouse missions are, prevent pollution reaching the Mediterranean Sea, minimize and control pollutants in the HOT SPOTs of the Mediterranean basin and eliminate and remediate existing polluted HOT SPOTs in the region.