Coastal Futures in the Making: Launch of the NEB Ocean, Coastal, and Islands Communities Lab in Oeiras

Following its launch at the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Festival in Brussels, the NEB Ocean, Coastal and Islands Communities Lab is now being presented in Portugal by its three founding partners: TBA21, the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI) at Instituto Superior Técnico, and the Municipality of Oeiras. The presentation takes place during the European Researchers' Night, Europe's largest science celebration, which takes place simultaneously across the continent every year on the last Friday of September. In Oeiras, the event is coordinated by the Municipality of Oeiras in partnership with ITQB NOVA, bringing together dozens of research institutions for an evening of hands-on science open to the public.

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) Ocean, Coastal and Island Communities Lab is a pan-European ecosystem that brings art, science, and policy together in service of the ocean. Building on the Horizon Europe lighthouse project, The Bauhaus of the Seas Sails, the Lab contributes to the societal engagement pillar of the  EU Ocean Observation Initiative (OceanEye), marking the first time that the NEB approach, based on the art, science, and policy interface is mainstreamed in a prominent EU Ocean initiative. 

TBA21 has been a part of the New European Bauhaus movement since its early days, bringing an art and advocacy perspective to an initiative that has grown into one of the EU's most ambitious efforts to connect sustainability, aesthetics, and inclusion. As a co-founder of the Bauhaus of the Seas Sails, TBA21 helped shape a methodology that treats culture as a co-producer of ocean knowledge, working alongside scientists, policymakers, and coastal communities across Europe. The launch of the Lab carries that work forward into a permanent, pan-European platform.

The event takes place in the Grand Hall of the Marquês de Pombal Palace and opens with a presentation of the Lab by Elisabete Brigadeiro, Nicolas Gharbi (TBA21), and Nuno Jardim Nunes (ITI), followed by a roundtable structured around three themes central to the Lab's mission: ocean observation as strategic infrastructure, Iberian cooperation, and the art-science translation of data for citizens. The roundtable brings together voices from across European ocean science: Commander Delgado Vicente, Hydrographic Institute (IH), Doctor Miguel Santos, Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA), Doctor Rafael González-Quirós, Gijón Oceanographic Center and Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), and representatives of the NEB Ocean, Coastal and Island Communities Lab.