- The Catalan capital will host the Ocean Decade Collaborative Centre (DCC) focused on Decade Challenge 4, which aims to advance the development of a sustainable blue economy
- The Ocean Decade is a United Nations initiative to promote collaborations between stakeholders globally to trigger a revolution in ocean science
- The Barcelona City Council is leading the project in collaboration with the Port of Barcelona and the Government of Catalonia, with scientific partners such as the Spanish National Research Council, through its Institute of Marine Sciences, and BlueNetCat, the Maritime R&D&I network of Catalonia, and with the support of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities
- The Centre, which will be active until at least 2030, will be managed by the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation, which is the DCC’s implementing partner
Barcelona is positioning itself as a global hub for the blue economy and will host the only Decade Collaborative Centre (DCC) dedicated to this sector.
UNESCO has confirmed that this world-class centre will be located in Barcelona, where it will be active until at least 2030 — which will mark the end of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 (‘Ocean Decade’), coordinated by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO-IOC).
With this DCC, Barcelona becomes the first city to lead efforts on one of the ten Decade Challenges set by the United Nations to protect marine ecosystems and promote the development of a sustainable and equitable ocean economy. Other Ocean Decade centres had until now been led by universities or research organisations. The Barcelona DCC will focus on Decade Challenge 4, which aims to develop a sustainable and equitable ocean economy.
Barcelona, already a major actor in the blue economy, is now set to be a global hub in this area.
The Barcelona City Council is leading the DCC project in collaboration with the Port of Barcelona and the Government of Catalonia, with scientific partners such as the Spanish National Research Council, through its Institute of Marine Sciences, and BlueNetCat, the Maritime R&D&I network of Catalonia (which brings together more than 800 scientists from the main Catalan universities and research centres and is the innovation and transfer instrument of the Maritime Agenda of Catalonia of the General Directorate of Maritime Policy and Sustainable Fisheries of the Government of Catalonia), and with the support of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
The DCC’s implementing partner is the Barcelona Capital Nàutica Foundation, which will host it in its facilities at the Port of Barcelona, and will be responsible for managing the staff and budget.
The DCC will have three strategic pillars:
- Generate knowledge on the blue economy.
- Promote innovation in this sector.
- Promote international partnerships and alliances.
Following these pillars, specific actions include:
- Set up the DCC as a global think tank on the blue economy.
- Create the world’s largest repository of scalable private and public projects applicable to ocean economy development.
- Consolidate a Blue Economy Impact Investment Fund based in Barcelona.
- Build an international public-private expert network on the blue economy.
- Promote international events on the blue economy held in the city, mainly the Tomorrow Blue Economy.
The Centre will start operating this year with a management team and two technical staff, and is expected to expand to five people in the third year of operation.
The blue economy, a strategic sector for Catalonia and Barcelona
Since 2020, the Department of Agriculture, in collaboration CREDA, has been assessing the scope of the blue economy in Catalonia. The latest report, published in 2024 with the latest available data which are from 2021, showed that the blue economy in Catalonia represents a turnover of 15 billion euros (3.3% of the total in Catalonia), a gross added value of 3.8 billion euros (1.7% of Catalonia) and employs 104,000 people (2.9% of the total in Catalonia). Some sectors in the data analyzed, mainly tourism, had not yet recovered their pre-COVID-19 activity.
Barcelona’s candidacy to host the DCC was presented by the Barcelona City Council during the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference, which brought together more than 1,500 people from the ocean community a year ago to focus on the challenges and opportunities related to ocean sustainability.
The blue economy is one of the ten sectors defined as strategic in the Barcelona Impulsa Plan, which is the city’s economic agenda until 2035 and focuses on the creation of quality jobs and economic diversification.
This sector already represents 4.3% of GDP and 1.4% of employment in the city, and includes economic activities such as maritime transport and logistics, port activity, fishing and marine biotechnology, the nautical and sports sector, tourism, shipbuilding and maintenance, and marine renewable energies, among others. With the opening of the DCC, Barcelona is establishing itself as a UNESCO reference in this sector.
The city is also launching three landmark facilities for the blue economy: the Barcelona Maritime Technology Park in the Nova Bocana del Port, the BlueTechPort innovation hub promoted by the Port of Barcelona, and the Barcelona Mar de Ciència centre, which will be a new Living Lab of the ocean for social transformation by the Institute of Marine Sciences, a centre of the Spanish National Research Council, dedicated to the ocean and citizen participation in the Olympic Port.
These projects, which will be operational between 2027 and 2028, represent a global investment of 142 million euros and, in addition to contributing to reviving the relationship with the city’s coastline, will be key spaces for research, training, knowledge transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship linked to the sea. In total, they will occupy 45,000 m2 of the city’s coastline.
Actions that contribute to achieving the Ocean Decade Challenges
The Government of Catalonia is fully aligned with the objectives of the Ocean Decade. This is reflected in the work that the Government is developing to advance progress on the ten Challenges identified by the Ocean Decade, including Decade Challenge 4, which aims to promote the sustainable blue economy.
Catalonia was a pioneer in Spain in having a Maritime Strategy. Since then, other autonomous communities have developed their own blue economy strategies (Andalusia, Galicia, Murcia, among others), and Spain is now developing a maritime strategy.
The 2023-2026 Plan of the Maritime Strategy of Catalonia is ambitious, with 4 areas of action, 28 strategic objectives, 75 strategic lines of action and 334 actions. Area 1 is on the promotion of the sustainable blue economy, and includes approximately half of the Strategy’s actions (37 of the lines of action and 192 of the actions). Cross-cutting actions aim to promote knowledge, innovation and energy transition in all sectors, and specific actions seek to improve the sustainability of the main Catalan blue sectors.
In addition, innovation is fundamental to promoting all economic sectors, including blue ones. The Government of Catalonia annually co-organizes, in collaboration with the BlueNetCat network, the Maritime Hub, a landmark conference on innovation in the blue economy. This conference promotes knowledge exchange between researchers on key issues, both from Catalonia and from other international regions, leading in the blue economy (Portugal, Flanders). This year’s conference will take place in Quebec, Canada.
The Government of Catalonia promotes the international dimension of maritime policy and participates in international fisheries, aquaculture and maritime policy organizations. It also leads two initiatives endorsed as Ocean Decade Actions, in collaboration with ICATMAR: “Adaptive assessment of fisheries in a changing ocean”; and “Making Oceanographic data accessible to everyone”.
A key project for the blue economy in Barcelona and Catalonia
Projects such as the future Decade Collaborative Centre are key to achieving this roadmap. They contribute to generating specialised jobs in research centres and companies in the sector, attracting investment, and creating innovative startups.
These are the 10 Decade Challenges, as listed in the Ocean Decade Implementation Plan:
- Challenge 1: Understand and beat marine pollution
- Challenge 2: Protect and restore ecosystems and biodiversity
- Challenge 3: Sustainably nourish the global population
- Challenge 4: Develop a sustainable, resilient and equitable ocean economy
- Challenge 5: Unlock ocean-based solutions to climate change
- Challenge 6: Increase community resilience to ocean and coastal risks
- Challenge 7: Sustainably expand the Global Ocean Observing System
- Challenge 8: Create a digital representation of the ocean
- Challenge 9: Skills, knowledge, technology and participation for all
- Challenge 10: Restore humanity’s relationship with the ocean