The Mission of AANChOR

After the success of the North Atlantic AORA-CSA, the European Union and various Southern Atlantic nations decided to extend the work beyond the Equator line. The Belém Statement officially created the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance. The AANChOR-CSA was funded under Horizon 2020 to implement the Belém Statement, its related All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance and the construction of the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Community, the wide group of stakeholders that contribute and benefit with the advance of marine science in the whole Atlantic basin.

In order to upscale research and innovation cooperation within the Atlantic basin, to better understand and sustainably manage the Atlantic Ocean as a whole, and to seed the basis for healthy future large-scale joint Atlantic marine activities, AANChOR has three main objectives:

Identify concrete joint actionsto support the implementation of the EU-Brazil-South Africa Belém Statement
Contribute to the implementation of the selected joint actions
Define long term measures for sustainability of the cooperationframework beyond the lifetime of the CSA

Central to the identification of concrete joint activities is the All-Atlantic Ocean multi-stakeholder platform, an overarching platform aggregating experts from northern and southern Atlantic countries, including academia, industry, funding agencies and NGOs – for the Atlantic, divided in 5 sub-multi-stakeholder platforms for practical reasons:

• Capacity Development
• Knowledge Transfer for Ocean Innovation and Economy
• Common Standards for Data and Information Sharing
• Ocean Citizen Awareness and Literacy and Convergence
• Alignment of Research and Innovation infrastructure initiatives

AANChOR will provide support  to a series of added-value Joint Actions targeting those key areas within transatlantic cooperation on ocean research, either in terms of providing seed funding for the implementation of the initial phases of the Joint Action and information of possible tools and funding mechanisms for the long-term activities of the Joint Actions The concrete joint actions will be implemented to support the implementation of the EU-Brazil-South Africa Belém Statement through an empowerment of the international cooperation framework between South Atlantic stakeholders. The Joint Actions were co-created throughout the first half of AANChOR by each of the sub-multi-stakeholder platforms and will be presented during the 3rd All-Atlantic Ocean Research Forum (3-4 December 2020; online event). Seed money within the AANChOR-CSA budget will be employed to financial support the early stages of each Joint Action.

AANChOR also aims at defining long term measures for sustainability of the cooperation framework beyond the lifetime of the CSA, including options for the sustainability of the All-Atlantic Ocean multi-stakeholder platform, for the monitoring and post evaluation of the Joint Actions and for supporting future cooperation in the Atlantic. In addition, and as a legacy, AANChOR will also support the All-Atlantic Ocean Youth Ambassadors Programme and develop a database of relevant marine research and innovation initiatives along and across the Atlantic Ocean in the key thematic areas of the Belém Statement.

All-Atlantic Joint Actions

Following a year-long collaborative process among more than 70 stakeholders at the Atlantic level, the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance Multi-Stakeholder Platform, divided into 5 sub-multi-stakeholders platforms, identified more than 1000 initiatives towards strengthening marine research and innovation collaboration at the Atlantic level, 56 gaps and 79 needs/recommendations to achieve the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance ambition, guided by a total of 20 Strategic Objectives, 20 Operational Objectives, and 10 Key Performance Indicators.

Based on these findings and on the idea of collaboration, alignment, and use of existing resources, they have developed six ambitious and long-term collaborative Joint Pilot Actions.