ONE-BLUE project celebrates its kick-off Meeting in Barcelona

ONE-BLUE project celebrates its kick-off Meeting in Barcelona

  • The ICM-CSIC headquarters hosted the project partners on January 22 and 23 to plan their first actions.
  • The project aims to comprehensively evaluate contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) and their impact on marine ecosystems.

The partners of the ONE-BLUE project met at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) on January 22 and 23 to celebrate the Kick-Off Meeting of this project. During these days, the project partners have met to share the tasks of each of them in the project and to agree on the different stages of the project.

The headquarters of the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) hosted these meetings in which the project has counted with the presence of Violeta Kuzmickaite, the EU Project Officer of ONE-BLUE. During the first day of the meeting, the working team of the ICM itself, the Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), and the Institute of Physical Technologies and Information (ITEFI), coordinator of ONE-BLUE, were in charge of welcoming the partners. Then, the partners themselves were able to present their lines of action and their tasks to be carried out in ONE-BLUE.

During the second day, the leaders of the work packages presented the activities of each of them, and meetings were held to share the tasks to be carried out. The parallel meetings focused on several issues such as the management of the sampling campaigns, the chemical and toxicological analysis, the new technology development and dissemination activities and stakeholders involvement.

ONE-BLUE in a nutshell

This pioneering project brings together a consortium of 18 partners, from 20 institutions and 11 European countries. Its primary objectives include advancing the understanding of the combined impacts of CECs and climate change on diverse marine environments, developing innovative technologies for CECs monitoring in the ocean, and assessing their consequences.

Scheduled to run until 2027, ONE-BLUE will conduct holistic assessments of CECs, focusing on their concentrations, profiles, fate, behaviour, and effects in the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea. Simultaneously, the project will formulate safety guidelines and monitoring protocols for future assessments of CECs in aquatic environments.

“In addition to the comprehensive assessment of CECs, the project will introduce new technologies, such as a remote autonomous sensing of antibiotics, the development of an ultrasonic system for concentration microplastics from seawater, and the creation of a decision support system as early warnings”, says the IDAEA-CSIC researcher Marinella Farré, ONE-BLUE coordinator.

The project has a budget of 6.200.138,75€ to improve knowledge of the presence, effects and risks of contaminants of emerging interest in different marine ecosystems and marine biodiversity in an environment affected by climate change. This project is funded by the European Commission through the Horizon Europe program, the main research and innovation funding program of the European Union.