INSPIRI · Imaginative Narratives and Scenarios for Inspiring Restoration and Innovation for European Seas and Water Systems

Progress toward the European Green Deal, the Mission Restore Our Ocean and Waters, and related EU climate, biodiversity, and pollution targets is hindered by governance barriers such as mistrust among decision-makers, lack of public support, and modest policy action. Building on creative participatory methods, the INSPIRI project will contribute to overcoming these challenges. The inclusive INSPIRI consortium will innovate by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders to imagine aspirational futures for EU waters using the Nature Futures Framework. Through case studies across the four Mission Lighthouse regions, we will co-create visions of desirable futures for ocean and water systems with stakeholders. Aligned with key EU strategic objectives and targets, these will then become goals for back-casting and modelling regional scenarios. The outputs from both visioning and modelling exercises will serve as inputs into regional Transformation Labs that bring together decision and policy-makers, experts and other stakeholders from the Lighthouse regions to chart actions towards implementing sustainable futures for EU waters. We will develop innovative scientific and artistic visualizations in each case study as well as at the pan-European level for both 2030 and 2050 time-horizons. Finally, through a creative, multi-layered communication, dissemination, and exploitation strategy, leveraging the full potential of art-science collaboration for motivating change, we will inspire key target groups to take meaningful action. Our consortium, collaborating closely with the Mission Lighthouses and governance structures, brings together world-class expertise in stakeholder engagement, visioning, modelling, policy analysis, and art-science collaborations to ensure we can deliver on the ambitious work plan. All our data will contribute to the European Digital Twin of the Ocean. Overall, INSPIRI will support action to achieve an ambitious EU vision for its waters by 2050.