The Seas, Oceans and Public Health in Europe project (SOPHIE -
https://sophie2020.eu/(opens in new window)) has helped to build new research capabilities for the emerging scientific discipline of ‘Oceans and Human Health’.
Humans have interacted with the Ocean since ancient times. We have used it as a means of transportation, recreation, a source of food and raw materials, and more recently to generate renewable energy.
Whilst the ocean can benefit human health and boost wellbeing via activities like recreation and relaxation, it can also pose risks to human health – through factors such as flooding and pollution.
This complicated mix of threats and opportunities interact in ways we don’t fully understand. Exploring these relationships is the basis for Oceans and Human Health research.
Much of this early evidence has been established in the US but far less is known about these issues in other parts of the world, including in Europe, which faces its own set of unique challenges and opportunities.
Funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme, SOPHIE has worked towards understanding the links between oceans and health in Europe. It has nurtured a network of people and organisations interested in the subject, and has explored how marine tourism and citizen science can contribute to this exciting area of research.
SOPHIE has brought together an international team of marine, health, social and economic science expert to work on this project. By including a broad range of interdisciplinary partners from both the marine and health sectors, it has helped to unite disciplines and communities across Europe and the world.
One of the main aims of SOPHIE was to produce a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA)
https://sophie2020.eu/strategic-research-agenda/for(opens in new window) oceans and human health in Europe. An SRA acts like a roadmap; setting out the direction future research should take, and identifying the resources needed from governments to make it happen. The SOPHIE SRA was based on expert and public consultation and identified three areas for future indeterdiscplinary research, both the benefits and opportunities as well as the risks:
- Sustainable seafood for healthy people
- Blue spaces, tourism and wellbeing
- Marine biodiversity, medicine and biotechnology
Issues of funding, equity, sustainability and co-creation with affected communities are essential to the SRA's success and runs throughout the project. To inform the SRA SOPHIE conducted a range of activities -
https://sophie2020.eu/activities/(opens in new window) and multiple engagement and dissemination events around oceans and human health -
https://sophie2020.eu/news/(opens in new window)• A systematic overview of the current scientific evidence with map;
• A network of people interested in oceans and human health via LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12127491/ ;
• Innovative initiatives which are already reducing risks and promoting benefits;
• Scenarios of what future economic, social and environmental conditions might look like;
• Bespoke citizen science training and skills programmes in Blue Tourism;
