The role of the Ghent University is twofold: The marine biology research group, which has a long tradition in coordinating training activities will be responsible for building a supporting framework to organize training opportunities and exchange of technology, knowledge and best practice (see https://www.ugent.be/we/biology/en/research/marbiol and www.marinetraining.eu) The laboratory of protistology and aquatic ecology will contribute to breeding and analysing improved microalgae for blue biotechnology applications (see www.pae.ugent.be)