Knowledge driven shared sustainable strategies for the Mediterranean Sea, a case of resilience in a collective educational process

The present paper analyses the implementation process and some aspects related to the resilience of the marine system, of the EU project BLUEMED (2016-2020), a Coordination and Support Action (CSA), aimed to involve the relevant actors and stakeholders of the Mediterranean Sea in the definition of knowledge driven shared sustainable strategies, through a collective democratic educational process. The Mediterranean Sea has been a crucial crossroad for the history, economy and culture of Europe, Middle East and North African countries. The concept of sustainable marine and maritime economic development has only recently been adopted by the European Union and is finally aimed at improving social well-being through an educational process that involves all the actors of the territory and the stakeholders in the broad sense. This implies a drastic change from how operators from marine and maritime sectors have traditionally addressed management of marine resources, towards a synergistic, non-conflicting and sustainable use of the sea (Stobberup, K. et Al.,2017). The Mediterranean region, given its long history of marine resources exploitation and increasing human pressure, is an ideal natural laboratory for testing the implementation and feasibility of this new educational process and, at the same time, to understand the resilience of the maritime system in this process (European Commission Staff Working Document, 2017). The paper intends to analyze and assess the steps and some implementation aspects of the collective educational process necessary to reach the goals of the BLUEMED project that includes also joint analysis and strategic planning. In particular it intends to test the capacity for resilience at various levels (territorial, individual, of community) that the whole system has retained in terms of its potentiality. If we consider the current economic crisis and the evolving political, social and environmental conditions in the Mediterranean Region, it becomes clear that only an interactive educational process, able to involve all the multidisciplinary actors from different Countries can build an ideal environment for reconciling tensions and balancing economic growth, social implications and environmental conservation. The main aim is to identify strengths and weaknesses in the educational process at the base of the Bluemed project, in order to verify if it can be able, taking advantage from the resilience of the whole maritime system, to create a participative and educational process, where the top-down and bottom-up approach can be connected, so stimulating a dialogue among stakeholders at different level and of different European Regions.