The EMFAF-funded project presents its results to nearly 100 attendees who participated in interactive workshops developed by ReMAP as part of MSP Data Week 2025 in Helsinki, Finland.
The ReMAP project, dedicated to developing digital tools to strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) plans, presented the 10 modules designed for MSP experts during the ReMAP Hands-on Conference on October 14th and 15th .
The conference was one of the side events organized as part of European MSP Data Week 2025, which took place from October 13 to 17 in Helsinki, Finland. On the occasion of the open publication of its results, the ReMAP consortium, following in the footsteps of the first edition, MSP Week 2024 that took place in Marseille, promoted this second part along with the European Commission and the MSP Platform. If the first edition focus on the celebration the 10 years of the Directive, the latter, focus on data gathering the community of MSP data experts.
Thus, last week in Helsinki, meetings of different working groups and workshops were held, such as those given by the tool developers of the ReMAP project, which brought together 85 participants, with almost full representation from all Member States, as well as intergovernmental authorities such as HELCOM-VASAB and PAP/RAC.
After three years of collaborative work, REMAP presented 10 digital tools designed to support the implementation of MSP in Europe at these workshops. These tools are characterized by being independent, reusable, combinable, operational, and publicly accessible. The aim of these sessions was to teach how to use the tools with practical exercises that demonstrated their usability at different scales: local, regional, and cross-border. Attendees were able to try them out, exploring their applicability in real contexts and their potential to improve the management of marine spaces and their resources in the different phases of MSP plans.
In addition to the training sessions, the conference served to generate dialogue among participants through two roundtables. Tuesday´s round table, led by Stefano Menegon (CNR-ISMAR), focused on creating space for policy innovation. Participants included Annette Scheffer (MSP Global, an initiative of UNESCO-IOC), Emiliano Ramieri (CNR), and Ibon Galparsoro (AZTI), who agreed on the state of the art of MSP and the actions that need to be taken to streamline the sharing of harmonized data, improve communication between stakeholders, and coordinate policies to address current issues in terms of MSP, such as the difficulties that arise between states that share borders, the lack of monitoring, and the prediction of possible scenarios (climate change, economic uncertainty, etc.).
Wednesday's session, facilitated by Marta Ballesteros (IEO-CSIC), served to add value to current policies and cocreate recommendations that will be included in two official documents to be published by ReMAP at the end of October. In dialogue with the other participants, the panelists, Céline Frank (DG MARE), Jose L. Santiago (EMODnet), and Dmitry Frank-Kamenetsky (HELCOM-VASAB), proposed a series of viable short- and mediumterm actions, defining who should coordinate them and highlighting, for example, the need to establish a protocol on the use and sharing of data among Member States.
During EU MSP Data Week 2025, experts, institutions, and international organizations came together to exchange knowledge and best practices. The event reinforced ReMAP and its partners’ position as key technical leaders in the field of MSP fostering among the MSP community greater alignment toward making MSP more sustainable, coherent, and resilient across Europe.
This conference marks the end of REMAP's cycle, but it leaves open new avenues for collaboration and practical application that will continue to fuel the development of maritime spatial policies in Europe. In addition, during the TEG workshop on Digital Twins, held on Thursday 16, ReMAP's work in collecting data and information from member countries and other stakeholders was highlighted.
Related links:
Please find the press release in PDF format here
The full ReMAP Toolkit, including all 10 tools, is available on the ReMAP landing page
More information on the tools on ReMAP´s YouTube channel
More information about the project can be found on the MSP platform here