European Ocean Days ’26 & Final Event: Highlights from Brussels
A-AAGORA participated in this year’s edition of the #EuropeanOceanDays, in Brussels, during which we also hosted our 7th General Assembly & Final Meeting. At the 4th Mission Ocean and Waters Forum, A-AAGORA shared a booth with CLIMAREST and BlueMissionAA.
The A-AAGORA consortium met in person for the last time in Brussels, in the first week of March 2026. This Final Event was moderated by Project Coordinator Ana Lillebø (UAveiro) and counted on the contributions of several project partners. The meeting opened with a warm welcome and a reflection on A-AAGORA’s main aims and achievements, highlighting the project’s legacy and its contribution to coastal ecosystem restoration across Europe. From the outset, the focus was clear: moving from innovative local solutions towards long-term, large-scale implementation.
A key moment of the session was the discussion on policy impact, which explored the enabling conditions needed to scale up restoration efforts. This part of the session, led by Pierre Strosser (ACTeon), stressed the importance of embedding innovative restoration approaches into policy and governance frameworks, strengthening the role of EU Missions, regional lighthouses, and Horizon Europe projects as innovation ecosystems, and ensuring that coastal restoration becomes common practice rather than the exception. Special attention was also given to the need for more agile and coherent financing instruments, better links between ideas and operational implementation, and stronger ex-ante assessment tools to support scaling-up and reduce uncertainty for investors.
The meeting then turned to social and socioecological impact, with a strong emphasis on the transformative power of living labs, when Vera Helene Hausner (UiT) took the floor. These collaborative spaces were presented as essential for shifting decision-making from top-down approaches to more inclusive, bottom-up processes. Inspiring examples from Norway and Portugal showed how volunteer initiatives, schools, local communities, and traditional knowledge holders can all play a decisive role in raising awareness, building trust, and mobilising citizens for ecosystem restoration. The sessions also highlighted how living labs help adapt solutions to local realities, making replication more effective and inclusive through a true “leave no one behind” strategy.
The discussion on environmental impact focused on the A-AAGORA demonstration blueprints, which are being designed as practical, accessible gateways to knowledge, guidelines, and protocols. Rory Scarrott (UCC) discussed how, rather than serving only as consultation documents, these blueprints aim to maximise transferability by helping stakeholders tailor and implement solutions in their own contexts. Their development has followed an audience-driven and highly participatory process, including recommendations gathered from associated regions and the integration of infographics to make the content clearer and more engaging.
Business models were also contextualised to provide a clearer understanding of how each solution creates, delivers, and sustains value over time. Diego Murraças (UNL) presented these models, not as detailed financial plans, but as highly visual and structured snapshots of the institutional and financial architecture needed to make restoration interventions viable in the long term. An interactive coffee-break session further encouraged participants to reflect on how to balance scientific evidence, stakeholder perspectives, and practical implementation needs.
The conversation on economic impact, led by Laurenz Jakob Gründmeier (UNL), highlighted that the viability and scalability of nature-based solutions are strongly context-dependent. Economic assessments carried out within the project showed that while many restoration actions generate substantial long-term public benefits, they often require public support because their value is diffuse and not always directly marketable. The results also reinforced that economic performance alone does not guarantee scalability: long-term institutional support, public-policy alignment, hybrid financing structures, and data-supported decision-making are all essential for sustained impact.
Looking ahead, the consortium reflected on what comes next for A-AAGORA and the project’s growing legacy, when Ana Lillebø again took the floor. Beyond the demonstration blueprints, new resources are being developed to support replication conditions, stakeholder engagement, and living lab implementation. Among the most exciting next steps are the A-AAGORA serious games, including online sustainability and group strategy games inspired by the three demo sites, all designed to encourage teamwork and unexpected partnerships for coastal restoration.
The upcoming MOOC, presented by Isabelle Görres (ACTeon), will offer a free online learning experience focused on scaling up and adapting A-AAGORA solutions to local contexts, while the Digital Knowledge Platform, presented by Andreia Silva (CoLAB +ATLANTIC) will further strengthen knowledge exchange, including links with sister initiatives such as CLIMAREST. The A-AAGORA Spring School, to be held in Aveiro, and presented by Olga Mashkina (ACTeon), will build on the MOOC content to bring together students and young professionals for five days of lectures and hands-on activities, helping bridge knowledge across sectors and foster a new international community committed to participatory coastal restoration.
A-AAGORA’s knowledge and results will continue to gain visibility well beyond the project itself. The consortium highlighted upcoming opportunities to showcase outputs at major international events, including the Biodiversity Conference, the World Ocean Conference, European Maritime Day in Limassol, and other Mission Ocean-related initiatives throughout 2026. The project’s serious games will also reach broader audiences through public-facing events such as the Sommer Werft festival in Frankfurt.
The session closed with heartfelt goodbyes, a celebration of the project’s achievements and legacy, and an open invitation to continue engaging with A-AAGORA’s outputs through the MOOC, the Digital Knowledge Platform, the Spring School, and the many opportunities ahead.
The following day, at the 4th Mission Ocean and Waters Forum, A-AAGORA again shared a booth with sibling project CLIMAREST and CSA BlueMissionAA. Some on-site work package meetings also took place, and consortium members participated in several of the events held throughout the European Ocean Days week. Valerie de Liedekerke (AIRC) participated in the “Together for change: A Coalition to empower communities for Mission Ocean and Waters” event, on Wednesday (March 4th), in representation of BlueMissionAA and the Atlantic and Arctic lighthouse. Valerie later participated in the ‘Governance: From national and local hubs to sea-basins coordination‘ panel of the Mission Ocean and Waters Forum, on Thursday (March 5th), and in the ‘From Actions to Impact: Tracking the Mission’s Progress‘ workshop, on Friday (March 6th).
