The EU4Ocean Coalition is organising its fourth "MakeEUBlue" Awards competition, supported by the European Commission, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of the ocean and encourage ocean literacy initiatives with long-term value. The projects that are winners of the Awards must be aligned with the EU4Ocean philosophy and mobilise organisations from different communities of the Coalition. The Award winners are selected based on a screening by the EU4Ocean secretariat, followed by a selection by the competition jury, consisting of members of the EU4Ocean Advisory Board and of its secretariat. The 2025 competition winners were announced at the European Maritime Day (EMD) 2025, in Cork, on May 22nd and 23rd, 2025.
Winner categories
This year, we have three general awards recognising the first, second, and third best initiatives (navy blue, classic blue, and sky blue). A "special mention" award complements these.
The winners will receive multiple prizes, including an official award certificate, a hand-made ocean-themed trophy, and a (modest) financial reward.
Short-list of candidates and selection of winners for the 2025 MakeEUBlue Awards
The MakeEUBlue Awards had received 54 applications from different types of organisations and initiatives. Applicants submitted a short description of their initiative, describing their project's main objectives and key products/deliverables. Each applicant filled a form explaining how their project complies with, or contributes to, 4 criteria that are central to the philosophy of the EU4Ocean Coalition: a) scientific, social and collective learning; b) high sustainability and replication potential; c) an innovative character; and d) significant impacts and engagement.
The selection process was built on two steps:
(1) A critical analysis of the applications by the EU4Ocean coalition secretariat to identify initiatives that best reflected the key principles of the EU4Ocean Coalition and the diversity of organisations and people that are part of the EU4Ocean platform, Youth4Ocean and blue education communities. This led to a short-list of 18 projects with their main features, strengths, and weaknesses summarised in a note.
(2) Voting for the best four initiatives made by members of the EU4Ocean Advisory Panel and Secretariat members.
The results of the two above processes were then combined to select the Award winners, proposing a balanced diversity of initiatives, organisations and countries.
The final results
The 3 main winners, chosen as Navy Blue, Classic Blue, and Sky Blue for first, second and third place respectively, are:
Jeanne is a workshop on wheels that aims to enhance ocean literacy in landlocked Austria, where marine issues are often overlooked.
Designed for school classes from diverse backgrounds, it transforms into an interactive workshop. Through storytelling, digital media, and sensory experiences, it brings marine forests - coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and seaweed banks - to life, highlighting their importance, threats, and restoration, with a strong focus on ocean-human connections.
By making ocean conservation tangible, Jeanne aims to foster an emotional connection and a deeper understanding that the ocean affects us all, empowering students to recognise their role in protecting marine ecosystems, even from inland.
“Truly fantastic news, thank you so much for your message and for this incredible honour! I’m absolutely delighted that Jeanne has been awarded first prize.”
Writing the future of the ocean is an inclusive and co-creative process that combines fiction writing and motion design, delivering youth empowerment. Youth from disadvantaged groups are central actors of the project. The project departs from stories reflecting a large cultural diversity and a number of countries and translates these stories into motion design videos. The project includes capacity building and builds on partnerships with diverse stakeholders (scientists, journalists, NGOs, educators…).
A source of inspiration for all Youth to write their own bright “future of the ocean”!
The added value of the Global Citizenship Marine Environment education initiative is that it brings the ocean into a wider Green education network.
It demonstrates the potential of including a blue lens in a well-structured way into broader and more rooted green and citizenship education. Added values of the initiative include: the diversity of topics covered (from marine biodiversity to marine spatial planning), its large scalability and replication potential (with trainings and resources as well as the network itself with green schools in other countries) and its inclusive character (reaching coastal as well as inland schools and special needs public). And it fosters citizenship action through collaboration with NGOs
Let’s bring the ocean to many other societal challenges and education priorities: green, citizenship, climate, food… you name them!
In addition to these awards, there was one "special mention" award:
The Increasing Marine Environmental Awareness project has chosen a diversity of artistic expressions to connect children from Cyprus schools to the ocean. Its strong artistic component, creating an emotional connection to the ocean for children and adults, mobilised dance, music, drama, puppet shows, storytelling… reaching pupils, schools and representatives of the wider community in different parts of the island. With a high impact, the project has set the conditions for wider dissemination that will deliver a long-term impression and bring a sustainable change in how we engage with the ocean, thanks to the involvement of municipalities, local actors and school (education) inspectors.
