BlueActionMatch is a community platform connecting people working across the blue economy, including algae, aquaculture, marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries, ocean multi-use and blue careers. It replaces BlueBioMatch, which focused specifically on the blue bioeconomy.

Why Did BlueBioMatch Change Its Name?

BlueBioMatch launched as a platform for the blue bioeconomy: a meeting point for startups, researchers, policymakers and funders working on algae, aquaculture and blue biotechnology. As the community grew, membership expanded well beyond bioeconomy topics into marine protected area management, sustainable fisheries and ocean multi-use.

The rebrand to BlueActionMatch reflects that wider scope. The platform is now built for anyone taking action in and for oceans, seas and waters, not only those working in bioeconomy-specific sectors.

How BlueActionMatch Works

The platform is organised around Groups: dedicated spaces where people working on similar topics can meet, exchange knowledge and start new collaborations. Active groups already exist around algae, aquaculture, marine protected areas, sustainable fisheries and ocean multi-use.

Members use BlueActionMatch to:

• Connect with people working on the same challenges
• Exchange knowledge, tools and project results
• Discover new initiatives and opportunities
• Find potential partners and collaborators
• Take part in discussions, webinars and community activities
• List and discover blue economy events, from webinars to conferences and hackathons

Who Is BlueActionMatch For?

BlueActionMatch is open to researchers, entrepreneurs, students, project partners, policymakers and practitioners working anywhere in the blue economy.

How to Join BlueActionMatch

Registration is free and open to the public. Rather than creating an account and stopping there, new members are encouraged to go directly to the Groups relevant to their work, since that’s where most of the exchange happens.

Register and explore Groups: https://blueactionmatch.hivebrite.com/feed

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What is the Nature Restoration Academy

The Nature Restoration Academy runs from 29 to 30 October 2026 at SUBMARINER’s Berlin office, preceded by an online baseline session that gives all participants a shared starting point. It is hosted by the SUBMARINER Network and funded by EIT Water, with support from the Poul Due Jensen Foundation (Grundfos Foundation).

The Academy builds directly on an existing course, Integrated Ocean Planning: Marine Protected Areas, Multi-Use and Business Pathways, part of the Blue Bio Techpreneurs programme already followed by 464 learners from more than 80 countries. Where that course lays the theoretical groundwork, the Academy adds practical, in-person restoration training across the land-freshwater-marine continuum.

How the restoration training programme is structured

The Academy runs in three parts:

1. An online baseline session, drawing on the existing Blue Bio Techpreneurs course content, so every participant starts from the same foundation.
2. A two-day event in Berlin, combining partner lectures, restoration case studies and workshops, including the MPA Game, a multi-stakeholder negotiation simulation, and a dedicated session on gender equality in the sector delivered by WIN-BIG.
3. A new online module, created from the recorded Berlin sessions and added to the Blue Bio Techpreneurs course on FutureLearn, so the knowledge shared in the room reaches learners well beyond it.

Topics covered include nature-based solutions for marine and freshwater restoration, European restoration case studies, citizen science and digital monitoring, restoration in offshore wind parks, and the business models and funding mechanisms that keep restoration projects running.

Who can apply

The Academy is open to early-career professionals, students and practitioners working on marine or freshwater restoration. Up to 30 participants will be selected to join.

Participation is free of charge, and a contribution towards travel costs is available for those coming from outside Germany.

How to apply

Submit a short motivation statement by 15 September via jotform. Selected participants will be informed by 1 October.

Apply now

Contribute a lecture or case study

Are you working in marine or freshwater restoration and interested in sharing your expertise? We are looking for lecturers and workshop leads to deliver sessions of around one hour, in person, in Berlin. Sessions can combine a short lecture with an interactive workshop.

All sessions are recorded and later form part of the new restoration module on FutureLearn, so your contribution continues to reach learners long after the event itself.

Get in touch at info@submariner-network.eu to discuss a contribution.

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Blue Lab’s own framing is a journey from source to sea, from the Main and the Rhine to the North Sea. Its core message: protecting the ocean does not start at the coast. It starts in rivers, including one running through a city that has never seen the sea.

TIDAL ArtS at Blue Lab: three works on the Baltic and North Sea

Three works at Blue Lab came from TIDAL ArtS, the Horizon Europe project SUBMARINER coordinates to connect art, community and marine science across four of Europe’s sea regions.

Echoes of the Deep, by Neonature, is a VR installation. Visitors put on a headset and stand inside two futures for the Baltic Sea: one damaged by ghost nets and pollution, one recovering.

Fish in a Kettle, by the Lab Rats Collective, is an immersive theatre performance set at a party hosted by the ocean itself in the year 2050, exploring coastal futures and climate change through ritual, grief and absurdity.

North Sea Signal Flags, led by artist Isabella Martin, invited festival visitors to design a new maritime signal flag for a body of water worth marking, continuing a series first made with children in Wells-next-the-Sea.

David Whyte, who represents TIDAL ArtS on the Blue Lab steering committee, also used the festival to test a social inclusion framework assessing how diverse an audience events like this actually reach.

Why ocean literacy in Frankfurt matters for the Baltic & North Sea

SUBMARINER coordinates the EU Mission Ocean Lighthouse for the Baltic and North Sea. Our work sits mostly in aquaculture, spatial planning and blue economy policy, fields that rarely bring us to a theatre festival. But eutrophication, one of Baltic Sea’s defining environmental problem, is a river problem before it is a sea problem. Most of the people whose water ends up in the Baltic will never stand beside it.

Blue Lab makes that same point about the Main and the North Sea, through art rather than data. It is also why TIDAL ArtS exists: to bring ocean literacy to people upstream, in rooms that ocean policy conferences do not reach!

Ocean literacy resources from SUBMARINER

Have a look at our ocean literacy repository, and get to know TIDAL ArtS. Blue Lab reached an audience we rarely do: a free festival crowd who came for theatre and left having stood, for a few minutes, inside a future for a sea they had never thought much about.

Blue Lab is an officially recognised Decade Action of the UN Ocean Decade (2021–2030), coordinated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC/UNESCO), and is part of the EU Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters” Charter. Blue Lab is led by protagon e.V. and Escuna Criativa e.V., a Salvador da Bahia based organisation connecting traditional shipbuilding culture with art, education and social engagement.

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Angela’s appointment reflects her work growing SUBMARINER into a network with over €260 million in project volume, and her existing roles in the EU Mission Ocean & Waters and on the European Ocean Board. She previously served on the EIT Water Steering Committee.

Read more about EIT Water

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Any European start-up or spin-off working in this field can apply. Five finalists will be selected for the Berlin ceremony.

Apply to pitch »

What winners receive

Three of the five finalists will win a one-year EIT Water membership, opening access to funding, business support and partners across Europe. The overall winner advances to the European WAVEMAKER final at the EIT Water Launch Event in Málaga on 15 October 2026, competing against regional winners from across the continent for the European title and a €5,000 prize.

All five finalists receive expert mentoring ahead of the event and a contribution towards travel costs to Berlin.

The ceremony follows the kick-off of SPHERE, an EU Mission Ocean project on marine protection and co-organiser of the event, coordinated by s.Pro Sustainable Projects. It’s a chance to meet more than 15 restoration partners from nine countries across Europe, experts from the MPA-Community Network, and others shaping the future of marine restoration.

Apply to pitch »

How to apply

The application form asks for short details about you and your venture, followed by five open-ended questions, each limited to 1,000 words. Completing the form takes approximately one hour, so we recommend preparing your answers in advance, as the form does not save progress. These are the five questions:

1. What problem do you address, and why does it matter for marine protection and restoration?
2. What is your solution, what makes it innovative, and how does it differ from existing approaches? Focus on how your solution works and what is new about it.
3. What measurable impact will your solution have on water and sustainability, and how will you measure it? Focus on the environmental outcomes your solution delivers, the numbers you expect, and how you will measure them.
4. What impact will it have on water and sustainability, and how will you measure it?
5. How viable and scalable is your business model?
6. Who is on your team, and what progress have you made so far?

Come ready to show measurable outcomes and a clear path to market. Be quick, applications close 20 August 2026.

Apply to pitch »

Would you like to join the audience, meet Europe’s marine restoration community and hear five ventures pitch live? Register your interest at info@submariner-network.eu.

FAQ

• When is the pitch event? 16 September 2026, Berlin at Mitosis LAB .
• Application deadline? 20 August 2026. Finalists are notified by 31 August.
• Who can apply? European start-ups and spin-offs working on marine protection and restoration.
• What do finalists get? A mentor, travel support, and a shot at a year of EIT Water membership.
• What does the winner get? A place in the Málaga final (15 October 2026) to compete with regional winners from across the continent for the European title and a EUR 5,000 prize.

Apply to pitch »

Questions? Contact info@submariner-network.eu.

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ASSOCIATE MEMBER

ATRIUM Environmental

Atrium Environmental connects the marine industry with science-based sustainability solutions. Their consulting helps organizations align environmental goals with business opportunity—guided by current research and expert knowledge.

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ASSOCIATE MEMBER

BLUEGent

BLUEGent is the business development center of Ghent University in the field of aquaculture and blue life sciences. Their goal is to upscale new research findings from the lab towards sustainable businesses – beit in the format of a spin-off, or a license with industry partners. Their in-house work focusses on advancing blue finance, by developing frameworks and methodologies at the intersection of marine and coastal ecology, finance, emerging markets and governance. They also document new value blue chains and perform blue techno-economic analyses.

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The two open calls — the Transition Agenda Open Call and the Community-Led Actions Open Call — were designed to fund organisations working to advance sustainable transitions in coastal and marine communities across the region.

Submission Results at a Glance

• Total proposals submitted: 222
• Transition Agenda Open Call: 61 proposals
• Community-Led Actions Open Call: 161 proposals
• Countries covered: All 11 eligible countries in the Baltic and North Sea region

Proposals were submitted from across the full range of eligible countries. In the Transition Agenda call, Norway, Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands were most frequently represented. In the Community-Led Actions call, the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany led in submission volume, with strong participation from Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

The applicant pool was diverse. In both calls, locally-based commercial companies submitted the highest number of proposals, followed by research-performing organisations, NGOs, enterprises focused on skills development or inclusive blue economy activities, regional and local authorities, educational establishments, and foundations.

Mission Ocean and Waters Objectives Addressed

All submitted proposals aligned with one or more EU Mission Ocean and Waters objectives. Across both calls, the three most commonly cited goals were:

1. Protecting and restoring marine and freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity — the most frequently cited objective in both calls
2. Preventing and eliminating pollution of the ocean, seas, and waters
3. Making the sustainable blue economy carbon-neutral and circular

The breadth of themes reflects the scope of interest in the region and the relevance of the BlueActionBANOS funding framework to a wide range of actors and approaches.

What Happens Next

Evaluation is now underway, carried out by external and internal evaluators selected by a dedicated Selection Committee appointed by the BlueActionBANOS consortium. Applicants will be informed of outcomes in Autumn 2026, and selected projects will be announced publicly.

For more information, visit blueactionbanos.eu or contact Project Coordinator Sarah Tamulski at st@submariner-network.eu.

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The blue bioeconomy — spanning marine biotechnology, seaweed cultivation, bivalve farming, ocean-based ingredients, and more — is a growing sector with genuine demand for skilled professionals and innovative entrepreneurs. But awareness of career routes, training resources, and funding opportunities remains low, particularly for early-career professionals and start-ups across the EU.

Many people want to work in the blue bioeconomy but can’t find a clear way in. That is the skills gap Blue Bio Techpreneurs was built to address.

What Is Blue Bio Techpreneurs?

Blue Bio Techpreneurs (BBT) is an EU-funded project designed to create more accessible pathways into blue bioeconomy careers and entrepreneurship. Working together with BLUEBIO ALLIANCE, Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique, University of Southern Denmark, and University of Gdańsk, the project has delivered:

• 6 online courses reaching more than 3,000 learners across Europe
• 3 international hackathons tackling real blue biotech industry challenges
• 7 webinars on blue economy careers and innovation pathways
• A growing BlueBioMatch community connecting emerging talent with industry opportunity

Behind each number are researchers exploring new career directions, entrepreneurs finding their first industry connections, and students discovering that the blue bioeconomy is a place they can actually build a future.

What Is the MakeEUBlue Award?

The MakeEUBlue Awards, presented annually at European Maritime Day, recognise outstanding contributions to ocean literacy, blue economy innovation, and sustainable use of marine resources across Europe. The Organisation category honours institutions making a measurable difference in how Europe thinks, learns, and works with the ocean.

Why Closing the Blue Bioeconomy Skills Gap Matters

Skills gaps don’t close on their own. They close when institutions invest in making knowledge accessible, when researchers and businesses find ways to talk to each other, and when early-career professionals can see a realistic path forward.

That is what BBT set out to do, and what this award recognises. For SUBMARINER, it also validates a broader approach: that transnational collaboration across the Baltic Sea Region, done well, can produce results that no single institution could achieve alone.

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TIDAL ArtS (Transforming and Inspiring Aquatic Landscapes through Art and Sciences) is an EU-funded initiative under the Mission to Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030. It operates through two strands: the Lighthouse Projects and the Residency Programme. Both bring together artists, scientists, and communities to develop work responding to marine science, climate change, and biodiversity.

The Lighthouse Projects

From over 600 applications, 20 Lighthouse Projects were selected across four regions: the Atlantic-Arctic, Baltic and North Sea, Danube-Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. Each project develops site-specific public art in collaboration with local communities and scientists.

The Baltic and North Sea Projects

Five projects are underway across the Baltic and North Sea region:

The Sea Begins Here (Lithuania) draws on marine science and local memory to explore how coastal communities relate to the boundary between land and sea.

Oyster Matter (Netherlands) takes bivalves as a starting point for thinking about marine restoration, the blue economy, and the relationship between human activity and ocean ecosystems.

Hotel Kittiwake+ (United Kingdom) uses performance and public engagement to open conversations about North Sea biodiversity and habitat loss. A public showcase on a North Sea beach is coming soon.

Echoes of the Deep (Germany), developed by the Berlin-based collective NeoNature, is building a virtual diving experience and online community centred on the underwater world of the Baltic Sea.

Baltic Code of Signals (Denmark) draws on the historical language of maritime communication as a way into questions about how we read and respond to what the sea is telling us.

Seaweed Stories: The First Completed Project

The first TIDAL ArtS Lighthouse Project to complete is Seaweed Stories, created by Cracking Light Productions in County Clare, Ireland.

Over six months, the project invited residents of North Clare to explore the Liscannor Bay coastline through workshops in foraging, seaweed cooking, macro photography, and printing. The project culminated in an exhibition at the Courthouse Gallery in Ennistymon, showing prints, macro photography, seaweed pressings, and a hand-dyed tapestry made from coastline-gathered seaweed and community stories.

Explore the project

Fish in a Kettle: Immersive Theatre in Liverpool

From the Atlantic-Arctic strand, Fish in a Kettle by Lab Rats Collective ran at Fabric Studios in Liverpool in May 2026. The immersive show placed audiences inside a house party set in Liverpool in 2050 — a city battered by rising tides — and was developed in collaboration with marine scientist Dr Marta Payo Payo from the National Oceanography Centre.

The Residency Programme

Alongside the Lighthouse Projects, TIDAL ArtS runs a separate Residency Programme — four artists or collectives, each awarded €50,000 to develop a year-long project embedded in a host location connected to the EU’s ocean and water mission.

The four selected projects are:

Living Archive of Water — Clara Jo, Turku Archipelago, Finland. A film, photography and installation project exploring water as a living co-narrator of ecological memory and collective storytelling.

Counterfactual Hydrologies — Klara Kofen, Venice Lagoon, Italy. An exploration of the Venice lagoon’s past, present and future — as ecosystem, colonial archive, industrial body, and climate frontier — through the lens of the EU’s Digital Twin of the Ocean.

Azores From Below — Sonia Levy, Bint Mbareh & María Montero Sierra, São Miguel Island, Portugal. A project exploring submarine soundscapes and submerged histories of resistance in the Azores, drawing on collective voicing, oral histories, and participatory listening sessions.

Huso Huso — Adam Hudec & Monika Pascoe Mikyšková (Dusts Institute), Danube River, Hungary. A project engaging with the extinction of the beluga sturgeon as both ecological and cultural loss, working with Danube sediments processed into natural pigments and community workshops in Ráckeve.

Residency kick-off events are taking place now across Europe — Venice in May, Budapest in May, Turku in June, and the Azores in June. Final exhibitions are planned for Spring 2027.

Why Art Belongs in the Blue Economy

TIDAL ArtS is built on a straightforward premise: science tells us what is happening to our oceans, but emotional engagement with place is one of the strongest drivers of long-term behaviour change. Art is not a soft addition to ocean policy but an practical tool for building the public understanding that sustainable ocean economies depend on.

Explore all projects: tidalarts.eu

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