It is widely recognized that the Black Sea faces serious environmental problems. Some of the major European rivers e.g. Danube, Dinper, Dnester, Bug discharge into the Black Sea carrying significant pollution loads. About one third of the land area of continental Europe drains into this semi-enclosed sea, which is connected to the Mediterranean through the narrow Bosphorous Channel. The increased pollution load that enters the Black Sea has led to significant deterioration of the marine ecosystem and a sharp decline of fisheries resources. The main aim of this SSA project is to organise future European and regional research activities under an EC-FP6 financed project, for the elaboration and implementation of a new strategy about i) mitigation of the Black Sea negative impacts and ii) sustainable environmental management of the Black Sea region. The objectives of this SSA project are: to establish an international, interdisciplinary Clean Black Sea Working Group involving experts from different fields (e.g. marine scientists, decision makers and policy makers) coming from Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean and other European countries related to the Black Sea environmental problems; to organise a meeting of this group. The aims of this meeting shall be: exchange of resent information and experience, discussions on measures for minimizing the pollution, establishment of links for collaboration; to prepare a new competitive Clean Black Sea STREP with the framework of FP6 that will in turn produce innovation strategies for minimizing the discharge of pollution and for achieving sustainable environmental management in the Black Sea area. For this purpose a project consortium with the participation of all countries presented in the Working Group will be established. The project objectives will be achieved by setting activities distributed in 4 Work Packages.