NAUTILOS half way through - a word by the Coordinator, Gabriele Pieri

The NAUTILOS project went through its mid-term last October 2022; two main achievements highlight this landmark. The first is represented by the first in-person plenary Consortium meeting. The NAUTILOS Consortium came together for a fruitful 3-day meeting in Faro hosted by the University of Algarve.

The other significant result is represented by the positive conclusion of the activities of Work Package 4, which along with the previously concluded Work Package 3, characterises the end of the development phase for the technologies of the project, namely sensors and samplers. At this point, the new generation of cost-effective sensors and samplers has been described and implemented.

In these first two years of the project, all planned deliverables were completed, reaching 54 submitted at Month 30. Three more milestones were achieved by month 24: the drafting of the first version of the Exploitation Strategy, along with an Open Access Instrumentation Roadmap, led to the first one in WP11; the development, as mentioned earlier, of sensors and samplers, brought to the achievement of the milestone for WP3 and 4; finally, another milestone has been achieved with the presentation of the initial versions of the Environment and Socio-Economic Impact Assessments in WP11. A final report will follow these initial releases in month 45.

Looking forward to the following steps, several actions have already been carried out towards integrating the various technologies into the different platforms envisaged to host them. In parallel, other activities are underway to calibrate and validate many of the developed sensors and samplers. An important appointment, in this regard, is represented by the calibration workshop week foreseen in connection with the next Consortium meeting, which NIVA will host in Oslo in May 2023. This calibration workshop will see multiple technologies tested in different environments, representing a crucial activity for Work Packages 5 and 6. At the same time, it will also be an excellent opportunity in view of the demonstration phase of Work Package 7, which is already in progress but will see its main activities in the upcoming second half of the project.

Among the activities already planned for the coming months, it is relevant to mention the organisation of the first summer school, which is part of the capacity-building events foreseen in Work Package 12, and which will be hosted in Norway by the partner NIVA. A subsequent summer school, still focused on the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy (ESPCE), will be arranged in the 4th year of NAUTILOS and hosted in Crete by the partner HCMR. Another mention should be made of the project’s participation in the Grand Finale of the Ocean Race, which will take place in Genoa, Italy and which will be the occasion to organise the first Round Table on policies planned as part of Work Package 10 activities. The central theme for this round table is “Supporting Ocean Observations”. Furthermore, NAUTILOS will participate in a Citizen Science panel in Genoa, presenting many of the activities already carried out during these two years of the project.

Many different and exciting challenges await the Consortium in the coming period and the subsequent milestone represented by the month 36 Review Meeting.