First Annual Meeting – Crete 2025

The REDRESS First Annual Meeting was held in Heraklion from 3^rd to 4^th March 2025 under the organization of HCMR. The meeting saw the participation of a large audience including members of the Consortium, members of the Advisory Board, and members of the DG Research & Innovation and DG Environment including the EU Project Officer. The REDRESS coordinator, Roberto Danovaro (UNIVPM), opened the meeting giving a general overview of the results achieved in this first year of the project for all the WPs. After this overview of the first 12 months of the project for each WPs, the meeting continued with presentations of the WPs co-leaders and task leaders to show the major updates on the progress of the WPs activities:

• WP1 – Prioritization of active deep-sea restoration interventions in a climate change scenario – Federica Foglini (CNR) & Ana Hilário (UAveiro)
• WP2 – Innovative approaches for deep-sea restoration of vulnerable habitats – Marina Carreiro-Silva (UAc) & Murray Roberts (UEDIN)
• WP3 – Innovative and cost-efficient technologies to monitor deep-sea restoration efforts – Jacopo Aguzzi (CSIC), Sascha Flogel (GEOMAR) & Furu Mienis (NIOZ)
• WP4 – Enabling deep-sea ecosystem restoration: socio-economic costs, benefits, and financing – Stephen Hynes (NUIGalway) & Nadia Papadopoulou (HCMR)
• WP5 – Governance structures and processes to support deep-sea restoration interventions – Nadia Papadopoulou (HCMR) & Jan van Tatenhove (WU)
• WP6 – Dissemination & communication – Cristina Gambi (UNIVPM) & Laurenz Thomsen (UGot)
• WP7 – Management – Roberto Danovaro, Cristina Gambi & Silvia Gallegati (UNIVPM).

The second day of the meeting was opened by the REDRESS Project Officer Victoria Beaz-Hidalgo (European Research Executive Agency, Unit REA.B3 – Biodiversity, Circular Economy and Environment) who presented the relevant updates on a) 1^st reporting period & review meeting preparations; b) REDRESS in the EU & international policy context; c) Marine biodiversity monitoring related developments; d) Mission Ocean & Waters & DTO; e) Bioagora marine cluster event; f) Ocean Pact & other developments and g) Social media policy. During the annual meeting, the doctoral students and postdocs involved in the different project activities introduced themselves. Giorgio Simone Affiliation: PhD student, University of Bologna & ISMAR – CNR, Italy Research Focus: Habitat suitability modelling and geographic information systems to evaluate the distribution, degradation, and future trajectories of deep-sea habitats. Integrating species occurrence records, environmental datasets, and human impact data to develop predictive models to identify priority areas for conservation and restoration under IPCC climate scenarios. Fabiola Maria Cecchini Affiliation: PhD student, ICM-CSIC, Spain Research Focus: Improve ecological monitoring in deep-sea Marine Protected Areas of the Catalan continental margin by developing ecological indicators to monitor restoration. Conducting a comparative analysis of benthic data obtained from trawl and ROV platforms to establish a baseline for affected ecosystems. Simone D’Alessandro Affiliation: PostDoc, University of Edinburgh, UK Research Focus: Active restoration of cold-water corals in the West of Shetland. Collecting live corals from oil and gas infrastructure for transplantation and conducting a regional population genetic assessment of cold-water corals. Laura Trovão Affiliation: PhD student, University of Aveiro, Portugal Research Focus: Assessing the socio-economic impacts of deep-sea ecosystem restoration. Employing a natural capital accounting framework to evaluate societal impacts from changes in biodiversity, ecosystem condition, and natural capital value over time. Jade Millot Affiliation: PhD student, Ifremer, France Research Focus: Identify priority conservation areas for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems in the Mediterranean, using bioregionalization, species distribution modelling, and conservation planning tools to integrate human activities and climate change impacts. Johanna Sophie Buerkert Affiliation: PostDoc, Wageningen University, Netherlands Research Focus: Deep-sea Restoration Governance Arrangements (DSRGAs) in European seas. Analyzing governance arrangements for the effectiveness and sustainability of marine restoration activities in selected REDRESS cases. Jan-Eike Rossius Affiliation: PhD student, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Research Focus: biogeomorphology and sediment transport in benthic soft-bottom communities, and the impact of species like the Norway lobster on sediment dynamics. Work on potential marine restoration techniques Gal·la Edery Affiliation: PhD student, University of the Azores & University of Barcelona Research Focus: sexual reproduction and early life stages of deep-sea octocorals to develop large-scale restoration methodologies using coral nubbins reared in aquaria. Vignesh Gokuladas Menon Affiliation: PhD student, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Research Focus: Impact of anthropogenic disturbances, particularly bottom trawling, on deep-sea sediment dynamics including carbon mineralization and its effect on marine ecosystems. Bárbara Segato Monteiro Affiliation: PhD student, University of Galway, Ireland Research Focus: Developing an ensemble modelling approach to predict deep-sea coral distribution shifts due to climate change and inform conservation planning for Marine Protected Areas. Federico Gigli Affiliation: PhD student, NIOZ, Netherlands Research Focus: Environmental parameter dynamics during restoration processes in benthic ecosystems. Using advanced sensor technology to monitor survival rates and ecological interactions in restored ecosystems.