JOINT PROGRAMMING INITIATIVE ON HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE SEAS AND OCEANS

Their core work

JPI Oceans is an intergovernmental platform that coordinates national marine research programs across European member states, aligning funding priorities and facilitating joint calls so countries invest in shared ocean science rather than duplicating efforts. They do not conduct research themselves — their value is in connecting national funders, research institutions, and policy bodies into coherent, cross-border marine research agendas. In H2020, they contributed their coordination network to projects implementing the Belém Statement on Trans-Atlantic ocean research cooperation and to building interoperable marine observation infrastructure through citizen science. Their real-world output is aligned international research investment, not journal papers.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their first H2020 project (AANChOR, 2018) was entirely about governance and alignment — the Belém Statement, convergence of research agendas, and establishing long-term collaborative structures across the Atlantic. By their second project (MINKE, 2021), the focus had moved from agreement-building to practical implementation: ocean observation networks, metrology, data quality standards, and citizen science engagement. The shift suggests that JPI Oceans matured from setting the international agenda to operationalising it through concrete observing infrastructure and community-building.

JPI Oceans is moving from high-level policy coordination toward embedding itself in practical marine monitoring infrastructure, particularly where citizen-generated data and standardised observation methods intersect — making them a useful partner for any consortium needing policy legitimacy alongside operational ocean data networks.

How they like to work

JPI Oceans joins all projects as a participant, never as coordinator — consistent with their role as a facilitating body rather than a research executor. Despite only two projects, they have accumulated 38 unique partners across 15 countries, which points to very large, internationally diverse consortia where they serve as a network node rather than a technical lead. Working with them means gaining access to a wide national-funder and research-policy network, but they are unlikely to drive technical deliverables.

With 38 unique consortium partners across 15 countries from just two projects, JPI Oceans sits at the centre of a broad European and Trans-Atlantic marine research network. Their geographic footprint reflects both EU member states and Atlantic partner nations (consistent with the Belém Statement partners: USA, Canada, Brazil, South Africa).

What sets them apart

JPI Oceans is one of the very few EU-level bodies with a mandate to coordinate national marine research budgets rather than spend a central EU budget — which gives them a different kind of leverage than a university or research institute. For consortium builders, they offer legitimacy with national science ministries and funding agencies across Europe and the Atlantic that no individual research organisation can match. If a project needs to demonstrate policy relevance, cross-border alignment, or connection to the Belém Statement framework, JPI Oceans is a structurally distinct partner.

Highlights from their portfolio

• AANChOR
  Directly implements the Belém Statement — the highest-level political agreement on Trans-Atlantic ocean research cooperation — making it the most policy-significant marine project in JPI Oceans' portfolio.
• MINKE
  Combines metrology and citizen science for marine monitoring, an unusual pairing that positions JPI Oceans at the intersection of precision measurement standards and participatory observation — a rare thematic combination.