The European Marine Board (EMB) provides an independent pan-European platform to its members to establish common research priorities, promote marine research and close the gap between marine science and policy. VLIZ represents FWO as a Member and was mandated by the Flemish government to support the EMB Secretariat by hosting the EMB Secretariat at the InnovOcean campus, and through the use of the general VLIZ infrastructure, IT support, and salary for one EMB staff member. Professor Jan Mees, VLIZ General Director, is the EMB Delegate for FWO.
One of EMB’s main highlights of 2025 was the 9th EMB Forum and Spring Plenary meeting, which took place at and were co-hosted by the Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels (and online) on 2-3 April 2025. The Forum focused on “Addressing coastal and water resilience at the land–sea interface” and was endorsed as a contribution to both the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the EU Mission: Restore Our Ocean and Waters. At the Spring Plenary the EMB picked “Submarine Cables” as its new topic, while “The Dynamics of Coastal Waters under Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers: applying Digital Twin and related technologies to obtain new insights” was picked at the Autumn Plenary, hosted by the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IO PAN) in Sopot, Poland, on 7–8 October 2025 as a hybrid event.
During 2025, the EMB published the Forum proceedings, three policy documents: Navigating the Future VI: The Ocean's Role in Addressing Global Crises; Deep-Sea Research and Management Needs; and Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal, as well as two project related policy briefs: Citizens' Views on Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management; and Advancing Black Sea Research and Innovation for a Sustainable Blue Economy.
A training workshop for the EMB Young Ambassadors took place at the InnovOcean Campus in July 2025 and they were involved in the launch of the Coalition of Emerging Ocean Leaders (CEOL), at the UN Ocean Conference in June.
VLIZ staff actively participated in EMB’s strategic events such as the EMB Forum. The VLIZ Research Director, Peter Landschützer was part of the Working group on Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for marine Carbon Dioxide Removal, and Pascal Hablützel of the Biomolecular Approaches Working Group; and the EMB Chair, Fiona Grant, was the keynote speaker at the VLIZ Marine Science Day.