1. Final COAST working group meeting
Lisbon, February 2003
AMBITION proposal:
Linking ecologicAl and chemical status of the Marine waters,
using BenthIc communiTy Indicators in a pan-EurOpeaN scale
European Commission
The Sixth Framework Programme covers Community activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (RTD) for the period 2002 to 2006
Javier Franco & Ángel Borja
Dept. Oceanography and Marine Environment, AZTI Foundation
Herrera Kaia, Portualdea, z/g – Pasaia, Gipuzkoa (Spain)

2. What is the EU’s Research Framework Programme (FP)?
The FP is the EU’s main instrument for research funding in Europe. The FP is proposed by the European Commission and adopted by Council and the European Parliament following a co-decision procedure.
FPs cover a period of five years with the last year of one FP and the first year of the following FP overlapping.
FPs have been implemented since The Sixth FP (FP6) is fully operational as of January 1, 2003.
FP6 aims to contribute to the creation of a true “European Research Area” (ERA). ERA is a vision for the future of research in Europe, an internal market for science and technology. It fosters scientific excellence, competitiveness and innovation through the promotion of better co-operation and co-ordination between relevant actors at all levels. At their summit in Lisbon in March 2000, heads of state and governments called for better leveraging of European research efforts through the creation of ERA. The FP is the financial instrument that will help make the European Research Area a reality.

3. What is the main difference between FP6
and previous research framework programmes?
Past FPs have helped to develop a culture of scientific and technological co-operation between
different EU countries and they have been instrumental in achieving good research results. They have not, however, created a lasting impact on greater coherence at European level. FP6 has therefore been re-defined and streamlined with the following objectives:
- concentrating European efforts on fewer priorities - in particular on areas where co-operation at European level presents clear added value;
- moving towards progressive integration of activities of all relevant participants working at different levels;
- promoting research activities designed to have a lasting, “structuring” impact;
- supporting activities that will strengthen Europe’s general scientific and technological basis;
- using the scientific potential of candidate countries to prepare and assist their accession to the EU for the benefit of European science at large.

4. What are the FP’s instruments?
New instruments
Integrated projects
Networks of excellence
Traditional instruments
Specific targeted research projects
Coordination actions
Specific support actions …
Marie Curie actions
Host-driven actions
Individual-driven actions

5. The AMBITION proposal
The AMBITION Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) is focused directly within the FP6 Specific Programme "Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area", specifically in the RTD “Supporting European Policies”, in the area under priority “Sustainable management of Europe's natural resources”, subpriority 8.1.B.1.5. “Environmental assessment (soil, water, air, noise, including the effects of chemical substances)” and Task 5: “Contribution to prevent the deterioration of the water status and ensure the achievement and maintenance of the good status of surface and ground waters (WFD)”, through studying the relationships between ecological and chemical status of surface waters: to establish relationships between the chemical and ecological status of surface waters in order to link the deterioration of the ecological status to well identified chemicals.
Task 5
Problem description
… In many instances, problems detected on the basis of ecological quality criteria are not directly linked to chemical pressures (e.g. surface waters of a “good chemical status” may have a poor ecological status). This may be due to the presence of unknown or not monitored substances, combined effects of various substances etc. In this respect, research is deemed necessary to investigate the causes of deterioration of ecological status of surface waters, linking them to chemical or other significant pressures. Such research would support the analysis as described under Annex II and V of the Directive.
Objective
Research is to establish relationships between the chemical and ecological status of surface waters in order to link the deterioration of the ecological status to well identified chemicals.

6. The AMBITION proposal Task 5 Approach
The project should take into consideration the WFD requirements regarding chemical and ecological indicators. It should be built on existing information (literature review, networking) followed by laboratory-based experiments (e.g. tank experiments with relevant parameters) and statistical analyses to study the chemical/ecological interactions, and field experiments in different locations to support/validate the findings.
Expected outputs
The research outputs should enable to link the ecological status of surface waters with their chemical status, which should enable to better define the good surface water status in the WFD. The results should hence support the options of the WFD regarding to the Environmental Quality Standards and the choice of ecological indicators, and provide data to validate these options and possibly update them.
Types of instruments
Specific targeted research project. Potential EC contribution: between 3,5 and 4 Mio€.
Nature of partnership
The partnership should involve research organisations (research institutes and universities) and policy-makers in charge of the implementation of the WFD. SMEs specialised in bioassays should, if possible, be involved. In addition, networking with other stakeholders (e.g. NGOs, industrial associations etc.) should be envisaged.
Organisation of the work and duration
Considering the requirement of WFD monitoring programmes to be operational by the end of 2006, the duration of the project should be 36 months at a maximum.

7. The AMBITION proposal
Taking into account the work to be done, and the expected outputs, the critical mass must be important, involving 27 groups or institutes; and at least researchers, policy makers, managers, environmental planners, etc. The ambition of this STREP is to mobilise all this scientific potential, focused on a clear objective related with the WFD. It is clear that this Directive has other potential areas of development (phytoplankton, fishes, etc.) and, if there are other complementary proposals to the Task 5, they should be coordinated as mentioned above. Moreover, this STREP could be horizontally and vertically related to some EU research projects already existing (BEEP, TARGET, BIOMARE, CHARM, etc.).
AMBITION WILL DEAL WITH BENTHIC BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS: MACROZOBENTHOS AND MACROPHYTOBENTHOS
Participants:
Spain (COORD.)
Belgium
Bulgaria
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Spain
Sweden UK

8. The AMBITION proposal
- Project management activities: the WP 1 directly addressed to ensure the successful delivery of the objectives of the project in the most cost-effective manner, to establish successful channels of communication between project partners, the end-user partners, the EU Commission, other related European and national projects, and the scientific community.
- Research activities: addressed to achieve the overall objective and the scientific and technological objectives. They will assess the ecological status on the basis of macrozoobenthos (WP 2) and macrophytobenthos (WP 3), and their relationships with the chemical status. These WPs will include the selection of case-study areas, laboratory experiments, statistical analyses to study the chemical/ecological interactions, and field studies in different locations to support and validate the findings, taking into consideration the WFD requirements regarding chemical and ecological indicators.
- Demonstration activities: the WP 4 includes the development of software for the assessment of ecological status, both in macrobenthos and phytobenthos, decision-support manuals, workshops with OSPAR, ICES, …, training courses for the dissemination of the methodologies (including end-users throughout Europe), and publications.

9. The AMBITION proposal Steering Committee General Coordinator (WP1)
Staff
Staff
End Users Board
Scientific Board
ICES
ICES
Benthos
Benthos
Ecology
Ecology WG WG
WP2
WP2
European Environmental Agency
European Environmental Agency
WP3
WP3
WFD
WFD
Working Groups
Working Groups
WP4
National Ministry of Environment
National Ministry of Environment
Data Base
Data Base
National Monitoring Networks
National Monitoring Networks
Relationships with other potential
STREPs ,
based upon the
WFD:
fishes ,
phytoplankton ,
pollutants ,
etc.
Scientific External
Advisory Group

10. The AMBITION proposal: key ideas
The role of projects like AMBITION is exactly to give empirically derived relations or other more or less linear functions between pressure factors, chemical indicators and ecological status.
AMBITION will hopefully be a tool to improve our understanding of reference conditions and how deterioration of these is linked to pressure factors with special emphasis on deriving relations between pressure factors and ecological status, that allow us to seperate the different quality classes objectively and consistent across the ecoregions.
AMBITION has a pan-European approach
AMBITION will be focussed on transitional and coastal water masses
AMBITION will be focussed on macrophytobenthos and macrozobenthos