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IMPACT ON PUBLIC POLICIES

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At a national level, the TL addresses directly the challenges set forth in the 2013-2020 National Strategy for the Sea (still undergoing public discussion), which advances a work program rooted in science and technology, aimed at meeting the challenges afforded by the need to explore and exploit in a sustainable manner the vast areas covered by the territorial seas, including the new dimension that will arise from the approval of the extension of the continental platform beyond the 200 nautical miles. The program addresses specific issues and sets technological challenges related to deep sea exploration and exploitation, namely the development and operation of robotic and monitoring systems as well as underwater observatories at a national scale. It addresses also the following strategic challenges which constitute priorities for the public policies in Portugal, as embodied in the recently available national Recovery and Resilience Plan: A- Climate change: promoting the energy transition and the circular economy, C - Climate change: valuing the territory - sea, and E – Digital Society, namely the digitalization of the Ocean.

At a European level, the work pursued has been greatly inspired by the objectives set forth in the  Blue Growth Strategy adopted by the Commission in 2012, in the context of the Horizon 2020 program, as a means to support “sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole”. One of the foci of Blue Growth is the development of advanced systems for ocean modeling and exploration with a view to challenging scientific, commercial, and societal applications.

The tight link between the R&D work carried out at LARSyS and applications that address commercial and societal needs, in line with the strategic challenges mentioned above, is clearly visible in the following representative projects that bring together commercial partners, external research institutions, and governance bodies.

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