Erasmus Maris

The Erasmus Maris initiative is a ground-breaking initiative that aims to build strong and lasting partnerships between scientific research, formal and non-formal education with the goal of fostering true co-creation of knowledge (participation in all the phases of a scientific study) in the frame of citizen science projects dedicated to marine and inland waters conservation. The initiative is unique and ambitious in its comprehensive approach that builds on transnational collaboration, and mobility, with a strong emphasis on social cohesion to leave no one behind and aligning with education for sustainable development. We are now conducting a second pilot project called RAISE-CS (co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme).

Our consortium includes partners from formal and non-formal education sectors has conducted pilot projects at an inter-regional scale. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) is providucing ad-hoc microplastic reference materials to validate the data obtained by the schools and developing together with the Univrsity of Ghent a “train-the-trainers” approach, called TrainMaris, to facilitate the participation of science teachers to all the phases of a scientific study. The office of the Secretariat General of the European schools collaborates by trying-out the activities in the multilingual environment of one of its schools (ES-Mol) and is providing support to align the Erasmus Maris educational objectives with the European framework for lifelong learning. In Belgium, pupils from vocational education and with special needs are making their technical skills available to build scientific instrumentation for the sampling of microplastics in aquatic environments and participate to joint activities with pupils from the general education system. In Spain, the Generalitat Valenciana is making available its nautical schools to emphasise the added value of combining formal and non-formal education for the acquisition of transversal skills such as leadership, teamwork and so on.
The pilot activities have demonstrated that this participatory initiative for co-creation of knowledge is not only feasible, but also effective in addressing both the educational and scientific needs mentioned above and thus ensuring the implementation of excellence in education while “truly” leaving no one behind.
The consortium is now advocating for a gradual implementation of the Erasmus Maris concept at the EU-scale. The upscaling can be done by encouraging the implementation of regional hubs for co-creation (living labs).
Another solution that we are exploring is to ask the Commission to examine the relevance of extending the scope of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission on the basis of the proposed concept.
The Erasmus Maris initiative aligns with the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development which goal is to coordinate and mobilise ocean science research, knowledge, and technology to support the implementation of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the conservation and sustainable use of ocean resources.