Green, circular and resilient harbours

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at directly engaging and supporting harbour/ports and their communities in demonstrating and accelerating the transitions needed for achieving one or several objectives of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters”. The participation of relevant public bodies managing port authorities and their communities as partners of the consortium is strongly encouraged.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Measurable, quantifiable, verifiable and ambitious progress towards reaching one or several interlinked objectives and targets of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030”, as set out in the Mission Implementation Plan^[1] through implementation of effective and well-managed place-based and people-centred actions;
• Involvement and increased readiness port cities and authorities for testing, deploying and upscaling systemic innovative solutions for restoring ecosystems and preventing their degradation, including by monitoring invasive species brought through maritime traffic or facilitating ecosystem connectivity;
• Increased number of port cities and authorities taking concrete measures to protect and restore marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, prevent and eliminate pollution of our ocean, seas and waters, and make the blue economy carbon-neutral and circular;
• Increased resilience of port/cities/authorities and their related communities to extreme climate events; sea-level rise and other environmental challenges (floods, droughts, sea-level rise, etc.) through in particular the reduction of pollution and improved environmental management in harbour areas;

Enhanced knowledge sharing across and within ports and their related communities, facilitating scalable and sustainable practices.

Scope:

The goal of this topic is to accelerate the implementation of innovative solutions to achieve Mission objectives and targets in ports in line with existing legislation like the Industrial Emissions Directive^[2], the Water Framework Directive^[3], the Marine Strategy Framework Directive^[4], the Waste Framework Directive^[5], the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive^[6] , the Nature Restoration Regulation ^[7] ,the upcoming EU Port Strategy, Industrial Maritime Strategy and the European Ocean Pact ^[8].

Proposals under this topic should test, deploy, and upscale systemic innovative solutions to improve sustainability and resilience in ports to reduce pollution and environmental degradation, reverse biodiversity loss, and improve natural resource management in port areas. This covers both coastal and inland cities and areas with a port regardless of their activities (e.g. fishing, commercial, marinas, recreational) and size. The proposals should encourage cooperation within and between ports across Europe using existing activities in some ports as pilots/leaders and engaging other ports in a development and learning process (e.g. using formats like summer schools and twinning, living labs concept).

For each project, demonstration activities are expected to take place in at least 4 ports, 1 in each of the four sea and river basins: 1. Atlantic and Arctic Sea basin, 2. Mediterranean Sea basin, 3. Baltic and North Sea basin, 4. Danube River basin, including Black Sea, with strong and meaningful involvement of public administrations and port managing authorities. The basins / Mission “lighthouses” include the river basins flowing into the respective sea basins.

The project should:

• Support the testing, deployment, and upscaling of innovative solutions to restore harbour/ports ecosystems, mitigate pollution by addressing one or several of the specific Mission objectives and targets and monitor the effectiveness of the proposed solutions;
• Bring together harbours, local stakeholders, relevant authorities, scientific and industry partners to drive collaborative action towards the development of specific local Implementation Strategies such as transitioning to renewable energy, alternative fuels or circular economy initiatives, biodiversity restoration and Nature-based Solutions, or adaptation measures to address sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and other climate-related risks;
• Facilitate knowledge-sharing initiatives and partnerships within and between ports to leverage best practices and lessons learned by demonstrating their transferability and scalability potential;
• Provide targeted assistance and capacity-building programmes to help smaller size ports to overcome barriers and adopt sustainable practices; This could include for example developing comprehensive waste management systems to recycle and reduce port-generated waste and involving local communities in sustainability initiatives or the deployment of nature-based solutions such as vegetated buffers to protect port infrastructure from coastal risks and enhance biodiversity;
• Facilitate synergies with other R&I-relevant EU, national or regional programmes and leverage of funds through interactions with regional/local authorities and where relevant with the private sector and investors to accelerate the innovation cycles of marine technologies.

Projects are expected to work with and engage at least 4 ‘associated regions’ (represented by local/regional port authorities/public bodies) to show the effectiveness of solutions to increase resilience and develop a replication plan for its uptake in an ‘associated region’ and build capacity at local level. Beneficiaries may therefore provide Financial Support to Third Parties (see the Specific Conditions table for this topic). Projects should (1) proactively reach out to the 'associated regions' to enable them to follow closely the project’s activities, (2) continuously share their outcomes and knowledge with those ‘associated regions’ and (3) provide them with technical assistance to build capacity and to implement in their territory the approach they developed.

Projects should build on the best available actionable knowledge, methods and innovations notably from the results of previous national and EU projects.

Competent authorities and other stakeholders participating in the project are encouraged to pool and enhance synergies^[8] with other sources of funding (e.g. structural, cohesion funds such as ERDF, or LIFE) for implementing and deploying innovative solutions.

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment.

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[1] See section 1.2. of the Mission Ocean and Waters Implementation Plan: https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-09/ocean_and_waters_implementation_plan_for_publication.pdf

[2] Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control)

[3] Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy

[4] Directive 2008/56/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 establishing a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy (Marine Strategy Framework Directive)

[5] Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives

[6] Directive 2014/89/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 establishing a framework for maritime spatial planning

[7] Regulation (EU) 2024/1991 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2024 on nature restoration and amending Regulation (EU) 2022/869

[8] COM/2025/281 final C(2022) 4747 final

[9] COM/2025/281 final C(2022) 4747 final