2025-06-12 → 2028-12-31
UNESCO’s Environmental DNA (eDNA) Expeditions is a global citizen science initiative aimed at advancing knowledge of marine biodiversity and the impacts of climate change on the distribution patterns of marine life across UNESCO World Heritage marine sites.
Website: https://ednaexpeditions.org
Contact: Saara Suominen (s.suominen@unesco.org)
Funding: The UNESCO eDNA Expeditions 2025-2028 is funded by the Minderoo Foundation and supported by Wilderlab.
2023-09-01 → 2027-02-01
The core mission of the DTO-BioFlow Project is to unlock "sleeping" biodiversity data enabling the sustained flow of these and new data via primary integrators and EMODnet into the EU Digital Twin Ocean. It will create a digital replica of marine biological processes transforming new and existing data flows into evidence-based knowledge.
Website: https://dto-bioflow.eu/
Contact: Saara Suominen (s.suominen@unesco.org)
Funding: This project is funded by the European Union (GA# 101112823).
2024-02-01 → 2027-01-31
BioEcoOcean (2024-2027) is a Horizon Europe project with the goal of creating a Blueprint for Integrated Ocean Science (BIOS). This tool will revolutionize biological and ecosystem ocean observation, enhancing understanding and sustainable ocean management. BIOS will guide every stage of ocean observation, from planning and data collection to policy applications. The project also advances state-of-the-art research on Biology and Ecosystems Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs), improving global data monitoring, management, and forecasting capabilities. BioEcoOcean aims to support local, European, and global scales in achieving better-informed decisions for sustainable ocean development.
Website: https://bioecoocean.org/
Contact: Elizabeth Lawrence (e.lawrence@unesco.org)
Funding: The BioEcoOcean project (Grant Agreement No. 101136748) is funded by the European Union.
2022-12-01 → 2026-11-30
Coastal and marine areas are rich in biodiversity and vital resources but face intense pressures from overexploitation, climate change, pollution, and development. While many programmes assess environmental health, they are often fragmented and short-term. MARCO-BOLO aims to transform marine biodiversity monitoring by connecting existing initiatives, optimising and improving methods, and further innovating technologies for biodiversity observations. The project will engage with diverse stakeholders to tailor their research and observation data for direct use, delivering practical tools that will allow politicians and companies to determine biodiversity health, predict and monitor changes from imposed policies, and proactively manage environments.
Website: https://marcobolo-project.eu
Contact: Lisa Benedetti (l.benedetti@unesco.org)
Funding: Funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101082021. The UKRI's Horizon Europe Guarantee supports UK participants in MARCO-BOLO under the Grant No. 10068180 (MS), No. 10063994 (MBA), and No. 10048178 (NOC).
2023-09-01 → 2026-08-26
The eDNAqua-Plan project aims to advance the integration of eDNA-based aquatic biodiversity monitoring into policy by reviewing the current landscape of reference libraries, dataset repositories and metadata standards. By identifying gaps, it will provide a blueprint for an improved reference database- and eDNA landscape that is reliable (e.g. verifiable taxonomies and reporting on data collection and processing mehtods), accessible, and interoperable across markers, taxa and data types. The result will be a plan for an interlinked digital ecosystem, that can be easily adopted by new practitioners, and that will make eDNA biodiversity monitoring more transparent and reproducible across Europe.
Website: https://ednaquaplan.com
Contact: Emilie Boulanger (e.boulanger@unesco.org)
Funding: Funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe Programme, Grant Agreement No. 101112800.
2023-01-01 → 2026-04-30
The EU‑funded MPA Europe project (2023–2026) systematically identifies optimal Marine Protected Areas across European seas, including the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Baltic, and Black Sea. Using a holistic, data-driven approach combining species and ecosystem range mapping, blue carbon stocks, ecosystem classification, and climate‑connectivity analyses, it prioritizes the top 10% and 30% areas for biodiversity and carbon protection. Results will be shared via a transparent online atlas and integrated into Marine Spatial Planning tools. Led by Nord University and partners, MPA Europe supports stakeholders and policymakers with decision‑support tools to inform climate‑smart ocean conservation and reach 2030 protection targets
Website: https://mpa-europe.eu/
Contact: Silas Principe (s.principe@unesco.org)
Funding: Co-funded by the European Union, Grant Agreement 101059988 – MPA Europe under the call HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-12 — Improved science based maritime spatial planning and identification of marine protected areas.
2021-10-01 → 2024-10-01
UNESCO’s Environmental DNA (eDNA) Expeditions is a global citizen science initiative aimed at advancing knowledge of marine biodiversity and the impacts of climate change on the distribution patterns of marine life across UNESCO World Heritage marine sites.
Website: https://www.unesco.org/en/edna-expeditions
Contact: Saara Suominen (s.suominen@unesco.org)
Funding: The UNESCO eDNA expeditions 2022-2024 project was funded by the Government of Flanders (Kingdom of Belgium) through the UNESCO-Flanders Trust Funds for Science and Culture.
2020 → 2023
Developing an invasive species monitoring system as well as an early-warning decision-support tool for Pacific Island States.
Website: https://pacman.obis.org/