Nice, February 27, 2025. In February Pôle Mer Méditerranée hosted the Mer & Horizons Day in Nice, bringing together more than 100 researchers, entrepreneurs, and maritime stakeholders to explore the future of marine biological resources, quality of ecosystem and their role in sustainable innovation.
The event featured four roundtable discussions led by experts, focusing on key themes:
Sustainable food from the sea – exploring how marine resources can contribute to more responsible food production (fishery, aquaculture and algae)
Healing with marine biotechnology – showcasing the latest innovations in health and pharmaceuticals inspired by marine organisms.
Water quality and ecosystem preservation – a crucial discussion on the links between environmental health and economic sustainability, led by the Agence de l’Eau.
The event highlighted the critical need to align ecological and economic priorities, ensuring that sustainability efforts also support viable business models. Discussions emphasized the importance of shifting from identifying challenges to implementing concrete solutions, showcasing real-world initiatives that are already making an impact. In particular, the biotechnology sector requires long-term investment and patience, making success stories essential to inspire, attract support, and accelerate innovation.
This day provided a valuable platform to exchange knowledge, foster collaboration, and drive action towards a more resilient and innovative blue economy.
This event marks an important first step towards the UNOC conference, which will be held in Nice in June 2025, where we will continue to build on these ideas and collaborations.
This event was fully in in line with our 2BBLUE project (event if it wasn’t planned in this specific project), which aims to boost the blue biotechnology community in the Mediterranean by sharing best practices, creating demonstration sites for emerging technologies, building strategic alliances, and improving regional policies to enhance sustainability, research, and innovation. In addition, MER & Santé event allowed us to foster the networking with the actors already involved in 2B-BLUE dynamics. We are planning to organise the next T-LAB in parallel of UNOC conference on June 2025.
