Ocean Conference Series

The German Ocean Foundation's Ocean Forum takes place annually on the Water Pixel World stage of the "love your ocean" area. At the Ocean Forum 2025, representatives from universities, NGOs and researchers spoke on topics such as deep-sea mining, ocean literacy, octopus intelligence and European marine policy. 

This year's programme included presentations from 11 speakers. We heard a call from Emily Penn, ambassador of the "love your ocean" sustainability initiative, for us all to find our superpowers in the fight against marine plastic pollution, about the Greenpeace campaign against deep sea mining, the Cool Blue Baltic project to establish marine gardens, Mare Mundi's research on the intelligence of octopuses in Croatia, ECOP Africa's ocean literacy projects, H2Org's revolutionary wastewater system that can simultaneously clean wastewater, reduce carbon dioxide and produce hydrogen, the German Ocean Foundation's Citizen Science project, which calls on water sports enthusiasts to collect temperature data in coastal areas, Aarhus University's research into the hidden powers of cable bacteria, the Senckenberg Ocean Species Alliance's goal of describing marine life before we lose it, the work of the Paul Ricard Oceanographic Institute in France and Frank Schweikert's work in the European Union's Mission Council to restore our oceans and waters.

The aim of the event is to draw attention to the seven UN Ocean Decade outcomes and to introduce the audience to new ideas and projects that are in line with the goals. The German Ocean Foundation is pleased to support the UN Ocean Decade with this and a number of other projects that have been recognized as official Decade activities.