Merry Observing and Happy New Year!

As 2025 comes to an end, we look back on a year of significant progress and consolidation for the EuroGOOS community. Across our Members, Regional Operational Oceanographic Systems (ROOS), Working Groups, Task Teams, and European projects, EuroGOOS continued to strengthen Europe’s ocean observing capacity and its contribution to global ocean knowledge. This year has been marked by active policy engagement, community coordination, and important governance developments, reinforcing EuroGOOS’ central role in European operational oceanography.

Throughout 2025, EuroGOOS played a key role in shaping European ocean governance, contributing to major policy processes such as the EuroGOOS and EOOS contributions to the European Ocean Pact and the first stakeholder consultation on the European Ocean Research and Innovation Strategy, while maintaining close engagement with DG MARE, DG RTD, DG ENV, and DG DEFIS. Together with the EOOS Steering Group, EuroGOOS advanced proposals to improve coordination, support long-term funding, and promote harmonised data practices across Europe. At the global level, EuroGOOS represented the community at major events including the European Maritime Day in Cork, One Ocean Science Congress, and UNOC3 in Nice, where our Voluntary Commitment was released, and the recent EMODnet Conference, reaffirming our long-term dedication to ocean observations and data sharing.

Important governance and organisational developments also took place. Following the end of Inga Lips’ mandate, the Extraordinary General Assembly approved Renuka Badhe as the next Secretary General, who will take up her role in early 2026. The EuroGOOS Office team evolved during the year. The EuroGOOS Office team evolved during the year, and we warmly thank all team members for their valuable contributions while welcoming those who will join the Office in 2026.

This year highlighted the strong momentum and diversity of activities across the EuroGOOS Regions (ROOS). The Arctic ROOS continued to play a key role in the development of ArORA, the Arctic GRA, including the co-organisation of an online workshop on AI applications for ocean and sea-ice forecasting with the Arctic Regional Team of the OceanPrediction DCC. BOOS hosted its Annual Meeting in Sopot, featuring a Decade public–private partnerships session. NOOS held a successful Annual Meeting in Dublin, with strong engagement from Early Career Ocean Professionals. IBI ROOS convened online, advancing governance updates and contributing feedback to the AMRIT project. MonGOOS elected a new Chair, Baptiste Mourre, and organised a successful Annual Meeting and workshop in Lisbon on Mediterranean multiscale variability, together with an EDITO workshop.

This year also saw significant progress across the work of the EuroGOOS Working Groups and Task Teams, which continued to advance key technical and strategic priorities. As part of their knowledge-exchange activities, they organised webinars on artificial intelligence, and a white paper summarising the outcomes will be published soon. A dedicated meeting of Chairs from the Regions, Working Groups, and Task Teams further strengthened cross-community coordination and collaboration.

EuroGOOS continued to contribute to a broad portfolio of European projects. Within AMRIT, ROOS workshops were organised, and foresight activities supported the development of future EOOS Technical Support Centre services. BioEcoOcean, ObsSea4Clim, and BioGeoSea jointly established the first EOV Network and produced recommendations for integrated biological, biogeochemical, and physical observations. In Blue-Cloud2026, the Training Academy was expanded, OTGA courses were launched, and VLab training packages were prepared. The DOORS project concluded successfully, delivering strong policy messages, youth engagement, and FAIR data capacity building across the Black Sea. Through EU4Ocean, EuroGOOS delivered two Decade-endorsed online trainings on ocean literacy and FAIR/CARE/TRUST data principles. As part of COP-IDEA, EuroGOOS has launched a six-month survey to expand the inventory of historical (1950–2010) in-situ metadata needed for CMEMS reanalysis. In FOCCUS, EuroGOOS, in collaboration with RBINS, co-led engagement activities and the inventory of coastal forecasting systems for the OceanPrediction DCC Atlas. 

We are also pleased to announce that the renewed EuroGOOS website is now live. The new site improves accessibility, navigation, and visibility of our activities, projects, and community resources, and better reflects the evolving role of EuroGOOS.

Looking Ahead to 2026

Several major milestones will shape the year ahead. CMMI will host the next edition of the EuroGOOS International Conference – Stronger Together on 18–20 May 2026 in Larnaca, Cyprus. The conference will take place as an official event of the Cyprus Presidency of the Council of the European Union, back-to-back with European Maritime Day in Limassol, and has attracted 132 abstract submissions.

In 2026, EuroGOOS will also launch a new Strategy Task Force and establish a Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, further strengthening coordination across Members and activities. Continued development of European Ocean Observing governance, engagement with European policy processes, and partnerships through the Ocean Decade, GOOS, Copernicus, EMODnet, and other global coordination bodies will remain central priorities.

None of this progress would be possible without the dedication and commitment of our Members, Chairs and Co-Chairs, ROOS networks, Working Groups, and Task Teams. Their exceptional efforts throughout a year marked by intensive transitions and significant achievements continue to shape a stronger, more connected European operational oceanography community.

On behalf of the EuroGOOS Office and the entire EuroGOOS community, we would like to wish you Merry Observing and a Happy New Year! ☃️