THE OCEAN OF TOMORROW

36, 37, 38. THE OCEAN OF TOMORROW: The European Union, has launched in 2011 ‘THE OCEAN OF TOMORROW’ call for proposals. Through this programme, the EU has made available to the scientific and entrepreneurial community a total funding of €14 M (project specific budgets mentioned below include both EC and non EC financial contribution) for up to three projects that explore the design of Offshore Multi-use Platforms, in which a mixture of different sectors and specific functions can be performed in a shared location with shared infrastructure (and costs) and could prove to be an important opportunity for improved utilisation of the oceans as well as sustainable economic growth. Therefore, developing a concept of Multi-use Oceanic Platforms has become one of the EU’s most interesting bets to guarantee the use and synergistic exploitation of oceanic resources in a sustainable and eco-friendly manner. The three selected and financed projects in the framework of ‘The bookTomorrow’ call for proposals, for which I coordinate the socio-economic analysis, are: