Project

The project investigates the green transition to fisheries and fisheries technologies that are sustainable in a life cycle perspective. The project intends to combine knowledge on fisheries policy, management, and technology with data and methods from industrial ecology and product environmental assessment to obtain a deeper and multidimensional understanding of the impact of fisheries and improve decision making for stakeholders and policymakers in this sector.

The project has two key objectives: 1) to develop new methods that accurately assess the climate impacts of fisheries accounting for constraints in supply, 2) to identify the trade-offs between fisheries practices that promote sustainable harvesting of stocks and the more recent drive to fish in a climate-friendly way.

The project combines expertise, tools, and methods from three different research domains: life cycle assessment, fishing technology, marine governance.

The objective of PERMAGOV is to assess and improve the performance of marine policies in supporting the implementation of the EU Green Deal goals. PERMAGOV does so by developing Multi-Layered Collaborative Marine Governance Strategies together with stakeholders. Project partners in PERMAGOV study institutional barriers, fragmented planning processes and insufficient possibilities for stakeholder involvement, which hinder the implementation of the EU Green Deal.

Focusing on specific cases within the four thematic fields of Maritime Transport, Marine Plastics, Marine Energy, and Marine Life, PERMAGOV is dedicated to improving the performance of marine governance at different scales. The project partners apply participatory research methods to enhance existing formal and informal dynamics and to leverage the use of relevant digital tools. Altogether this will facilitate stakeholder engagement and knowledge and information exchange. PERMAGOV provides a key contribution to the EU Green Deal for several marine domains by delivering actionable insights for better informed decision making by policy makers, by increasing public awareness of marine affairs, and by contributing to an improved conceptualization of problems and solutions in multi-layered marine governance.

Staff members from Centre for Blue Governance are broadly involved in the different aspects of the project.

PERMAGOV is funded by the EU's Horizon Europe programme.

While the oceans are attracting growing attention, people at sea still receive little consideration by stakeholders, scholars and the public at large. The frequent violations of their most basic human rights, which safeguard their life, liberty and health, often go unseen and unpunished. This happens all over the world, including in European seas. Thus, death, slavery, unlawful arrest and other human rights violations result in practical negation of the universality of human rights – the idea that all persons are equally entitled to human rights – advocated by the European Union and the United Nations. The Action aims to assess, from a legal perspective, how human rights can be enjoyed also by people at sea and by all people at sea. It will answer two fundamental questions: What is the content and scope of the rights to life, liberty and health when applied at sea and who is responsible for protecting them and how? The Action will create an international, multidisciplinary, cross-sectoral and cross-institutional network, which will engage in depth with the conceptual and practical issues that arise from the need to protect these human rights of people at sea. Using the most appropriate means, including conferences, open and closed workshops, Training Schools and Short-Term Scientific Missions, the Action will bring together scholars and stakeholders working in this area, raising awareness about people at sea and their most basic rights, elaborating the theoretical framework within which to locate legislative efforts, and producing ready-to-use tools for governments, industry and civil society.

Deep Seabed Mining (DSM) is the search for, and exploitation of, minerals and metals necessary to construct clean energy technologies. However, there are outstanding gaps and uncertainties as to the possible environmental impacts, and how to legally carry-out these activities, is not yet determined. This book will have state-of-the art learnings on how to conduct DSM in a just and sustainable way.

SEAwise is a dynamic research programme aimed at understanding the current state-of-play of fisheries management across Europe, and facilitating the widespread implementation of Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) in the region. Through a targeted research programme, and in close collaboration with our stakeholder network, we will work to develop a fully operational, synthesised management advice tool that highlights the benefits – or potential trade-offs – of fisheries management decisions. To do this, SEAwise will work to identify and address the key challenges currently inhibiting EBFM.

SEAwise is funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme.

The COST Action “Rethinking the Blue Economy: Socio-ecological impacts and opportunities” (RethinkBlue) centres around the Blue Economy and related policies affecting European societies. After the term was introduced at the UN Rio+20 conference, the paradigm was adopted by various actors across Europe and beyond. In the EU, the Blue Economy paradigm involves regional and national political-economic priorities, new legislative and governance frameworks, and EU and national financial support for sectors of the marine economy. However, the impact of these policies on coastal populations are not yet well-understood. Accelerating globalisation, technological developments and the impact of climate change pose additional challenges.

The purpose of this Action is to rethink the Blue Economy, in two ways. First, by assessing its impact on coastal societies, and second, by exploring opportunities deriving from innovations and potential synergies between established and emergent marine activities. The guiding research questions are:

1. What are the impacts, positive or negative, of Blue Economy developments on human well-being, social equity and the economic and environmental sustainability of coastal societies?
2. What are potential opportunities for innovations and synergies between sectors?

Scientific interactions focus on five themes: (1) maritime occupations, (2) food security & sustainable blue consumption, (3) port cities & coastal communities, (4) fisheries governance & emergent activities, (5) climate change & natural hazards. Knowledge exchange and capacity building among researchers and stakeholders of the Blue Economy will be facilitated through meetings, research workshops, an online seminar series, training schools, and conferences.

Action keywords: Blue Economy - Maritime governance and policy - Socio-economic transformations - Social, economic and environmental sustainability - Coastal societies

When it comes to climate change, it will become more frequent and stronger every year. Cities and rural areas on both sides of the border need to adapt to both more rain and rising sea levels on our coasts, but also to the fact that rain may not occur for longer periods, resulting in a high drought index.

ClimatePol's focus is to make us more aware of existing structures and create alliances and cooperation across the border, so that we engage both cities, regions and all other actors who can contribute to climate adaptation measures at all levels and across the border.

The project is funded by Interreg Deutschland-Denmark and the European Union and runs from 2024-2027.

“Green Transitions in Port of Aalborg” is a collaboration between the Port of Aalborg and Aalborg University Business School. Both organizations share from different angles—practice and research—the interest in green transitions; that is, how business operations and strategies can be designed such that they ensure an ecologically sustainable economy. As business operations vary widely, this strategic initiative comprises three main foci, looking at business operations within the port, at how the port interacts with its external environment, and at the port as one player in the broader regional environment (i.e., Greater Aalborg), always through the lens of identifying and solving problems in relation to green transitions.

This project examines the production of political orders around deep-sea ports in Africa. Focusing on the intersection between territorial states, corporates and non-Western hegemons, the project asks: What kind of polities emerge around ports, and with what consequences for the political order of host states?

The goal of AMARIS is to conduct a theory-driven and in-depth study of maritime security in Ghana. It investigates the manifestations of maritime crime in the country (work package 1), the governance responses to maritime security that have developed in the past twenty year (work package 2), and the capacity building assistance that is carried out in the country by international partners (work package 3).