The Polar Ocean Mitigation Potential (POMP) Horizon Europe project recently held its annual meeting from April 1-3, 2025 at the Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche – IMEV (France). This gathering marked a significant milestone, showcasing a record-breaking attendance of 50 participants, including 22 early career researchers actively developing projects tied to themes covered in POMP. Special thanks were extended to Steeve Comeau for hosting the event, which saw significant participation from French-Canadian partners at Université Laval and Université du Quebec à Rimouski.
The meeting commenced with project coordinator Mikael Sejr setting the stage by outlining the goals for the meeting and acknowledging the impressive turnout and commitment of all partners. This was followed by presentations from Work Package leaders, who detailed the progress made during the project’s first year. Updates included results from assembling data-sets, field and lab work, results from modelling and remote sensing tasks, as well as some updates on the horizon scan task and outreach outputs.
Day two of the general assembly was dedicated to breakout sessions per work package. These sessions were pivotal for discussing progress, planning activities for the second year, and setting clear publication goals. The groups also tackled potential challenges to achieving their milestones and deliverables.
The final day was dedicated to specialized discussions within various thematic working groups. Topics ranged from planning fieldwork for 2025, engaging with stakeholders, to outlining upcoming laboratory experiments and modelling tasks.
This annual meeting not only highlighted the collaborative spirit of the POMP project but also reinforced its role in advancing our understanding of how polar ecosystems can mitigate climate change impacts. The enthusiasm and innovative ideas shared promise a forward-moving trajectory toward impactful research and significant contributions to environmental policy.
