Under the framework of JPI Oceans and together with BANOS, BlueMed, NOAA and the UN Ocean Decade, we are pleased to launch this call, with a deadline for proposals on 28 February 2022.

The call provides an excellent opportunity to address a systemic approach to ocean challenges, support policy and governance, and support experimental research activities on the emerging issue of the acoustic pollution of oceans and seas. The call is endorsed as a contribution to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, which means that selected projects will be endorsed as Decade Actions.

With growing awareness, our society – scientific researchers, non-governmental organizations, policy makers, and citizens – recognizes anthropogenic noise as an emerging pollutant and threat for subaquatic environments. Underwater acoustic pollution impacts on the health of marine animal populations and biological productivity.

The overall aim of the call is to decrease the existing high levels of uncertainty and to promote specific lines of research that will contribute to the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive at regional sub-basin scale, and, therewith, contributing to reach the Good Environmental Status of the European seas and oceans.

The call will address two main challenges in the field through activities that may focus on:

• Theme 1: Effects of anthropogenic noise pollution on marine ecosystems 
  
  
• Theme 2: Innovative seismic sources as an option for quieter and effective alternatives to conventional marine geophysical exploration