Ocean Challenges

The OCEAN Challenges is born out of previous work on ocean studies, an interdisciplinary field that aims to respond to key societal challenges:

• Ocean as a solution to climate change and biodiversity loss (nexus ocean/climate/biodiversity);
• Developing a truly blue economy (in the sense of sustainable ocean economy) with good job creation linked to innovation and technology, considering also traditional knowledge.

Among other, but with particular importance the focus of the CC is on:
 

• Building a shared language related to the ocean, that improves ocean literacy and makes room to boost innovation relating blue economy and better ocean governance at the different levels of decision;
• Elect Ocean Challenges among the community to drive teaching and research.

PLANNED EDUCATION ACTIVITIES

• Research-based learning workshop to CC students.
• At the BA level - “Field Lab” final course (27 ECTS), designed to produce a teamwork throughout the semester, focused on different topics proposed by the Schools involved and other relevant stakeholders and elected by the students.

PLANNED RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

At the Master´s Level, but also joining professors and students from the BA level and the NOVA Ocean Knowledge Centre Community, mainly in:
 

• Marine bioprospection law (comparative analyses, legal policy recomendations);

• Marine biobanks network (legal policy recommendations and legal drafting, part of a broader agenda on boosting blue bioeconomy);

• Role of women in selected ocean sectors (expected to start in a couple of months).
   

Connected Community Activities

Upcoming Activities

CALL TO ENGAGE WITH THE OCEAN CHALLENGES

The NOVA Ocean Knowledge Centre, part of the NOVA School of Law's Research & Development Centre on Law and Society (CEDIS), will hold an official event to present the results obtained from its participation in the Portuguese Blue Biobank Project. The event will address the theme “The role of legislation in promoting the blue biotechnology sector in Portugal”, and it will place on December 3, 2024, in room 007 of the NOVA School of Law, from 14h30 to 17h00 (Lisbon time).

The Portuguese Blue Biobank is one of the major projects of the Innovation Pact – known as the Blue Bioeconomy Pact – a consortium led by Inovamar, Lda, which embraces the challenge of strengthening and reindustrializing Portuguese industries associated with the exploitation of marine resources. The project is part of the Blue Bioeconomy Pact as a transversal Work Package (WP9) and funded by the Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).
 

In the project, NOVA Ocean had the task of preparing a piece of legislation to regulate the activity of marine bioprospecting and the use of resources collected and developed from samples, as well as the use of samples already collected and stored and their development. For that, the centre identified and analyzed the relevant legislation at international, European and national level. At the national level, a comparative study was conducted including the legislation of 10 countries: Portugal, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, South Korea, Costa Rica, Spain, France, and Norway. 21 main comparative elements on the subject were identified, which were analyzed individually in each of the national legislations selected for the comparative study and inserted into a comparative analysis table.

The 21 elements addressed topics such as the nature of the marine genetic resources (MGRs), the competent entity, the in situ and ex situ access regime, the MGRs collections, the use, transfer, and traceability of MGRs, the benefit sharing regime, among other matters.
 

NOVA Ocean would like to invite the whole EUTOPIA community to engage in the project to broaden its scope and deepen its research. A possible option would be to apply the comparative analysis table to other national legislations. Other approaches and types of participation are also welcome, if suitable. You would be welcomed to participate in our event and present your findings. If you are interested, please contact NOVA Ocean through the email: novaocean@novalaw.unl.pt

Past Activities

How to get involved?

• Contact the Learning Community Lead: Professor Assunção Cristas (assuncaocristas@novalaw.unl.pt) or Local Facilitator: Carolina Pereira (carolina.pereira@unl.pt)

Connected Community Members

Lead Assunção Cristas (NOVA) assuncaocristas@novalaw.unl.pt

Assunção Cristas, born in 1974 in Luanda, is married and has four children.
She was part of the First Doctoral Course of the Law School of Nova University, Lisbon (1997), where she obtained her doctorate in private law, with the thesis – Contractual Transmission of Credit Law. The true nature of credit claims (Almedina, 2005). She’s been a Professor with NOVA School of Law ever since. She has a law degree from Lisbon University Law School (1997), where she was a monitor (95/96) and a trainee assistant (97-99), until she opted to dedicate herself exclusively to the preparation of her PhD at NOVA School of Law, benefiting from an FCT grant. 
She was Director of the Office of Legislative Policy and Planning of the Ministry of Justice (2002-2005). Between the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2009, she dedicated herself exclusively to academia. In addition to the teaching component and national and international research, with participation in colloquia and publication of texts, she has also been involved in organizational aspects. Namely, she coordinated the SPEED (Permanent Research Seminar on the State and Study of Law), joined the Board of CEDIS (Centre for Studies in Law and Society) and headed the CNIACC (National Centre for Information and Monitoring of Consumer Conflicts), a body created in liaison with the Directorate-General for Consumers. She has co-authored several papers on consumer legislation.

She was a consultant at Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva e Associados (2009-2011).

Between September 2009 and January 2020 she held several political positions at national level (from 2011 on, exclusively): she was Member of Parliament (2009-2011 and 2015-2020); Minister for Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning (2011-2013) and Minister of Agriculture and Sea (2013-2015) of the XX and XIX Governments; President of the political party CDS-PP (2016-2020). In 2017 she was elected a councilor of Lisbon City Council, a mandate that ends in 2021. In July 2019 she published the book Trust. Women, power and the country that we aspire to for all.
Returning to the Faculty, she assumed joint coordination of the Master’s Degree in Law and Economics of the Sea and the coordination of the NOVA Ocean Knowledge Center, having resumed her teaching activity in the academic year 2020/2021.
In,  2022 joined VdA as responsible for the Environmental Practice Área, that includes Ocean matters, and the ESG Integrated Services Platform. She is an expert for sustainability and ocean issues at the World Economic Forum.

Partner Fabio Pittarello (CUV) pitt@unive.it

Fabio Pittarello is Associate Professor in Computer Science at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
He has a multidisciplinary background that includes a master’s degree in architecture and a PhD in computer science at the University of Bologna.

His research interests include all the theoretical and practical aspects of HCI and information visualization, for different paradigms that include desktop and mobile interaction, virtual and augmented reality, tangible and ubiquitous interaction. Information accessibility is a transversal research interest started from accessible web design and then widened to other paradigms.
The application fields of his research span through different fields, including design, humanities, arts and environmental sciences.
Collaboration with private and public institutions (La Biennale di Venezia, Regione Veneto, Palazzo Grassi) has been often part of his research path for experimenting solutions in the real world. 
He has been one of the founding members of the first academic spin-off of the Ca' Foscari of Venice.

He has written more than 100 peer-reviewed papers published in the proceedings and scientific journals related to his research field.
His contribution to the research community includes the contribution to the organization of scientific conferences and workshops and his reviewer activity for several conferences and scientific. 

He has been involved in a number of research programs at a national and international level. Currently he is PI, for the University Ca' Foscari 
of Venice, for the three-years H2020 European Project Bauhaus of the Sea Seals.

Concerning education, he has a long teaching experience in the field of HCI, UX and information design, which includes courses for the bachelor and master in Computer Science and the master in Digital and Public Humanities at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, the bachelor and master in New Technologies for the Art at the Fine Arts Academy of Venice, the bachelor in Design at the IUAV University of Venice.

Partner Ola Bergström (GU) ola.bergstrom@handels.gu.se

Content soon

Partner Lena Gipperth (GU) lena.gipperth@law.gu.se

Research interests:
Environmental law, Marine governance, Water management and Biodiversity, legal implementation of environmental quality objectives.