• Deliverables & Progress
• Latest Foccus Applications
• Workshops & Events

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The Horizon Europe project FOCCUS aims to enhance Copernicus Marine Service's coastal dimension by developing innovative products and integrating Copernicus with Member States services. It facilitates seamless ocean monitoring and forecasting across global, regional, and coastal scales, reinforcing Copernicus research for challenges like coastal protection and sustainable blue economy development.

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Dear colleagues and FOCCUS community,

As we step into autumn 2025, the FOCCUS project has finalized its design phase and is entering an exciting phase of delivery and impact. We closed out the design phase with the creation of 14 new data products, the refinement of 14 advanced techniques to better integrate coastal modeling systems with the Copernicus Marine Service, and the improvement of two European hydrological models, and completed the design of 12 planned applications that will address environmental and societal issues related to climate change. In addition, we evaluated two in-depth inventories of existing European coastal data and modeling systems, and sought to enhance our connections to stakeholders through three co-design and networking workshops. With strong collaboration across national coastal services, modelling teams, and end-users, we are continuing co-developing innovative products and applications as we start the implementation phase that bring us closer to sustainable coastal management in line with SDG 14 – Life Below Water.

Joanna Staneva and Kelli Johnson 

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Deliverables Spotlight – Progress Across All Pillars

With the conclusion of FOCCUS’s design phase in June, we’ve reached a major milestone: the submission of several key deliverables, many of which are now openly accessible on Zenodo. These outputs represent important building blocks for the next phase of development and demonstration

📊 Data Management & Reporting

• Interim Data Management Plan
  updates and strengthens our framework for FAIR and secure data handling.
  This updated plan refines FOCCUS’s strategy for open-science compliance and robust metadata, ensuring that every dataset can be traced, accessed, and reused. It incorporates lessons learned from the first year and sets clear standards for the next stage of data-intensive work.
• Interim Data Management Plan
  updates and strengthens our framework for FAIR and secure data handling.
  This updated plan refines FOCCUS’s strategy for open-science compliance and robust metadata, ensuring that every dataset can be traced, accessed, and reused. It incorporates lessons learned from the first year and sets clear standards for the next stage of data-intensive work.

🌍 Hydrology & Land–Ocean Interfaces

With sea levels rising and weather patterns growing more extreme, erosion is an increasingly visible risk to Europe’s coastal infrastructure and habitats. FOCCUS is tackling this through:

• Technical report on the design of estuary dynamics modelling approaches
  advances our understanding of complex estuarine processes.
  This outlines improved approaches for simulating how rivers interact with coastal waters, supporting better predictions of flooding, sediment transport, and ecosystem changes. This groundwork is critical for more accurate downstream applications.
• Technical report on LOC-interfaces
  details methods for coupling land, coastal, and ocean models.
  The report provides a blueprint for seamless information flow between land-based hydrology models and marine forecasting systems. It strengthens the scientific foundation for fully integrated land-to-ocean prediction services.

🌊 Coastal Modelling & Applications

• Implementation of CMEMS-MCSC interface establishes links between FOCCUS modelling systems and Copernicus Marine.
  By defining and testing these connections, the deliverable enables national coastal models to feed into and benefit from Copernicus Marine data streams. This paves the way for more consistent, pan-European marine forecasts.
• Processing Techniques
  documents new approaches for efficient data processing and model integration.
  This report captures technical best practices and algorithms that speed up integration of coastal systems with the Copernicus Marine Service and improve the accuracy of high-resolution coastal forecasts. These techniques will underpin more timely and reliable marine services.
• Inventory of applications
  captures practical use cases that support co-production with stakeholders.
  This living catalogue gathers user-driven examples — from coastal flood management to ecosystem monitoring — and identifies how FOCCUS innovations can be tailored to real-world needs. It sets the agenda for pilot demonstrations in Phase 2.

From design to demonstration: FOCCUS is ready for impact

These deliverables close out the FOCCUS design phase and mark a turning point for the project. They bring together the foundations for data management, hydrology, modelling, applications, and communications into a coherent framework. What this means in practice is that FOCCUS now has the technical and organisational building blocks in place to move from planning into action. The next phase will focus on demonstrating how these outputs work in real-world contexts, showing their value to coastal services, stakeholders, and society.

These deliverables not only tick boxes in the project timeline, they are cornerstones for the co-production of new coastal services that combine data, models, and applications.

📊 FOCCUS Deliverables at a Glance

✨ As of September 2025, the FOCCUS project has achieved:

• ✅ 15 Deliverables submitted across all Work Packages
• 🎯 15+ Key Milestones reached (data products, interfaces, workshops)
• 📂 100+ Datasets shared via Zenodo & OSF
• 🌍 Pan-European coverage linking hydrology, coastal, and ocean systems
• 🤝 Applications inventory completed, paving the way for stakeholder co-production

You can explore the full deliverables table, with links to Zenodo and reports, here.

Looking Back: FOCCUS in Action

Our community continues to advance coastal and ocean research through high-quality scientific publications. Recent highlights include:

• Mihailov, M.E., Chirosca, A.V. & Chirosca, G. (2025). Fusion of In-Situ and Modelled Marine Data for Enhanced Coastal Dynamics Prediction Along the Western Black Sea Coast. J. Mar. Sci. Eng., 13, 199. doi.org/10.3390/jmse13020199
• Dammak, N., Chen, W. & Staneva, J. (2025). Toward an AI-enhanced hydro-morphodynamic model for nature-based solutions in coastal erosion mitigation. Applied Ocean Research, 154, 104326. doi:10.1016/j.apor.2024.104326
• Pein, J., Staneva, J., Biederbick, J., & Schrum, C. (2025). Model-based assessment of sustainable adaptation options for an industrialised meso‐tidal estuary. Ocean Modelling, 194, 102467. doi:10.1016/j.ocemod.2024.102467
• Vona, I., Colella, S., Sammartino, M., Brando, V. E. & Falcini, F. (2025). Positive correlation between the Po River discharge and ocean colour trends of Chl and TSM in the Adriatic Sea. Front Remote Sens, 6, 1574347. doi:10.3389/frsen.2025.1574347

Additional preprints and recent studies include works on estuary dynamics, plastic pollution, thermohaline intrusions, and the impacts of extreme river discharge—see the full list here.

Looking back on an intense conference season, FOCCUS has been highly active across Europe and beyond, sharing project advances, forging collaborations and strengthening ties with key marine and data-science communities. Here are some highlights:

GEO Global Forum 2025 (online) 

FOCCUS showcased its work with a dedicated poster, contributing to the global conversation on geospatial data and Earth observation.

EGU General Assembly 2025 (Vienna, Austria)

– Our team delivered one talk and two posters, reaching an international geoscience audience and sparking new scientific dialogue.

One Ocean Science Congress 2025 (Nice, France)

Together with COSS-TT, we presented a joint poster highlighting advances in coastal ocean forecasting and co-production.

IWMO 2025 (Stanford, USA)

A conference talk brought FOCCUS insights to the international marine meteorology and oceanography community.

From Europe’s largest geoscience meetings to global ocean and data-science forums, FOCCUS has shared knowledge, exchanged best practices, and strengthened its network of collaborators. These outreach activities demonstrate FOCCUS’ commitment to co-production, innovation, and a stronger European and international coastal ocean community.

Data & Knowledge Sharing

FOCCUS is committed to open science and FAIR data. Recent releases include:

• Hydrological datasets (WP4/5) via Open Science Framework (OSF).
• Observational datasets (WP2/3) on Zenodo.

These datasets feed directly into cross-cutting modelling efforts to better capture coastal hazards, estuary dynamics, and land–sea interactions.

Get Involved

• 🌐 Explore the FOCCUS website for project news, outputs, and events.
• 📩 Register to the FOCCUS newsletter.
• 📲 Follow us on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Looking ahead

 As FOCCUS moves into its final year, our focus shifts to integration and demonstration:

• Bringing together results from the three pillars—Observations, Modelling, Applications.
• Showcasing real-world applications through pilot demonstrations and stakeholder workshops.
• Strengthening co-production with EU and national coastal services to ensure uptake and long-term impact.