• Guilvinec, Finistère
• June à September 2026
• Opening on 29 and 30 May 2026

Exhibition - Lumexplore Festival, 11th edition

• Eden Théâtre, La Ciotat
• From 9 at 13 September 2026

Dive into the heart of a scientific mission in the Southern Ocean aboard the ship Marion Dufresne. Through more than a hundred photographs, the authors of this Art-Science project offer a sensitive behind-the-scenes look at research at sea. An artistic and deeply human look at the commitment of scientists and sailors to better understand and protect the Ocean.

A work of Franck Desplanques, a photographer, and Stéphanie Jacquet, a CNRS oceanographer assigned to the MIO, OSU Pythéas, supported by the CNRS, Ifremer and the Agence de l'Eau.

This exhibition will be on display at Man and the Sea Festival, then to Lumexplore Festival, each time in a different setting and context.

Photo credit: ©Franckdesplanques - website Man and the Sea Photo Festival

Additional travel grants and registration fee waivers are now available for on-site and virtual participants.

You can apply for financial assistance directly during the abstract submission process. Further information is available under the ‘Abstract submission‘ tab.

Please note that registration fees are only due after you have received the outcome of both your abstract submission and financial assistance application.

Deadline(s)

• Abstract submission: 26 May 2026.
• Registration (On-site): 21 Jul 2026.
• Registration (Virtual): 25 Aug 2026.

Conference overview

The last decade has witnessed a revolution in our understanding of the functioning, ecology and evolution of plankton communities at a global scale. Environmental surveys have provided insight into all domains of life in the oceans, from bacteria, archaea, eukaryotes, DNA and RNA viruses. Techniques have advanced from single gene surveys to whole-genome-resolved approaches. Recent years have also witnessed advances in cross-scale plankton automated imaging techniques, feedback microscopy, remote sensing from space, and the acquisition of contextual data from the water column, as well as new computational techniques for big data analysis and deep learning. As ambitious interdisciplinary oceanographic efforts and time-series sites continue to generate and release information-rich data, now is a key moment to highlight the most notable milestones and discoveries, and to showcase how scientists can exploit these data in different ways.

The goal of the conference is to focus on the new fields of plankton science enabled in particular by 10 years of Tara Oceans research, to increase the impact of the newknowledge generated from these datasets, and to foster new collaborations among aquatic microbial ecologists, evolutionary biologists, oceanographers, cell and molecular biologists, geneticists, and more. The objective is also to identify questions that recent discoveries and the arrival of new technologies, methods, and concepts from all corners of the biological sciences now enable us to ask.

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We are looking for suggestions for presentations, workshops, ‘circus sessions’ and posters for CommOCEAN 2026, the seventh in the series, taking place 2-3 September in the coastal town of Bergen, Norway, with an ‘icebreaker’ in the evening of 1 September. CommOCEAN 2026 will be a fully in-person event and registration for the conference will soon open.

For this edition of CommOCEAN the overarching theme is ‘Communication for and within the UN Ocean Decade: Setting Sails for 2030’. Under this theme there will be three main topics and an open session (each with a plenary followed by workshops/parallel sessions):

• Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and new technologies in ocean science communications - opportunities, risks and ethical considerations.
• Security-related and geopolitical dimensions of ocean and science communication in a time of crisis and disruption - including misinformation, trust and strategic communication.
• Increasing Citizen Engagement and Ocean Literacy through communication - how to reach different audiences and foster understanding of ocean-climate interactions.
• Open topic session - emerging topics, case studies and experimental formats.

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Over the course of five days, young researchers from across Europe will work in teams of four or five to develop innovative solutions to the following five major societal challenges:

• Adapting to climate change
• Cancer Prevention and Treatment
• Regenerating our oceans and waters
• Neutral and smart cities
• Soil health and food

Following a selection process in the spring, the finalists will travel to Brest to take part in the competition 7 at 11 September 2026.

There is a total of €80,000 in prize money up for grabs, including €12,000 for the Jury Prize. Participants will also receive support from subject-matter and business experts to help them develop their project. The costs associated with this event – international and local travel, accommodation and meals – will be covered by the organisers.

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To mark the 2026 Interdisciplinary Festival of Science and the Arts organised by Aix-Marseille University on the theme « Humans and Animals. A shared adventure? » nous sommes heureux de vous inviter au parcours De Méduse aux méduses : de figure mythologique à symbole écologique.

Longtemps associées à la figure mythologique de Méduse, les méduses incarnent à la fois fascination et répulsion. Leur apparence gélatineuse, leur pouvoir urticant et leur étrange beauté ont nourri des récits où elles symbolisent le danger, l’altérité ou des forces naturelles insaisissables. À travers ces représentations, elles révèlent autant notre rapport aux mondes marins que notre manière de percevoir, comprendre et imaginer le vivant.

Cette installation propose un parcours immersif retraçant l’évolution des représentations des méduses, des récits mythologiques aux approches scientifiques, artistiques et écologiques contemporaines. Organisé selon une progression chronologique, il met en dialogue illustrations naturalistes, études scientifiques et créations plastiques afin de montrer comment les regards portés sur ces organismes se sont transformés au fil du temps.

L’installation invite également à interroger les enjeux environnementaux actuels. Souvent présentées comme des « symptômes » du changement global, les méduses sont associées au réchauffement climatique, à la surpêche et à la dégradation des écosystèmes marins. Pourtant, présentes dans les océans depuis plus de 650 millions d’années, elles subissent elles aussi ces bouleversements, ce qui nous invite à nuancer cette vision.

Une dimension participative complète le parcours : les visiteurs sont invités à créer leur propre méduse à partir de matériaux de récupération, une manière d’explorer par la pratique artistique les émotions, les imaginaires et les représentations que suscitent ces organismes. En croisant histoire environnementale, arts et écologie marine, cette proposition invite à repenser la place des méduses dans notre imaginaire et notre relation aux océans.

With :

• Louise Merquiol (artiste-chercheuse en post-doctorat, Institut Méditerranée d’Océanologie-MIO)
• Anne-Sophie Tribot (écologue, chaire de professeur junior à TELEMMe, amu-CNRS)
• Alicia Pasquet-Forster (doctorante en psychologie sociale et environnementale)
• Thomas Changeux (hydrobiologiste spécialiste en écologie des pêches, Institut Méditerranéen d’Océanologie-MIO).

To mark the 2026 Interdisciplinary Festival of Science and the Arts organised by Aix-Marseille University on the theme « Humans and Animals. A shared adventure? »We are delighted to invite you to a performance of the play Martin is a fish :

Venez découvrir cette pièce écrite par Thomas Flahaut suite à sa rencontre avec Daniela Banaru, Maitresse de Conférences Aix-Marseille Université à l’Institut Méditerranéen d’Océanologie (MIO / OSU Pythéas – AMU, Univ-Tln, CNRS, IRD), qui étudie les causes de la raréfaction de la faune marine en Méditerranée !

Solane and Gojo have been hanging around on the ledge for ten years, staring out at a dying sea. Martin, the fisherman's son, joins them in a desperate attempt to save her.

BINÔME, created as part of The Year of the Sea (PPR Ocean and Climate, France 2030)

In the ‘binôme’ programme, the researcher becomes the subject of study for a playwright, who writes a play loosely based on their encounter. The result is moving, often funny, and offers us an unusual perspective on science and the people behind it. Following a one-off 50-minute meeting with a scientist, a playwright writes a 30-minute play for three voices. This is then staged as a reading by a collective of actors and directors, accompanied by an original musical score. Binôme has been running since 2010 and there is now a collection of 64 productions.

Registration is free but compulsory for logistical reasons.

Programme to follow.

The CNRS-INSU National Training Initiative MetaBioDiv, organised by the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography (Fabrice Armougom) and the CNRS Provence & Corsica Regional Delegation (DR12), offers the scientific community training on the characterisation of the taxonomic biodiversity of ecosystems (prokaryotes and micro-eukaryotes) through the lens of Illumina high-throughput sequencing (MiSeq) and the associated bioinformatics processing (R tools in RStudio).

Date, Venue and Programme of the Training Course

The training course will take place from Monday 28 September 2026 (midday) at Friday 2 October 2026 (midday) at Villa Clythia (Fréjus), situated on the edge of the Estérel. All trainers and participants will be accommodated on site to facilitate interaction and discussion over the course of these four days. The training is free of charge for CNRS staff (who will be given priority when registering), but is also open to staff from other organisations. The registration fee of 400 euros covers the cost of the course as well as accommodation and meals. For CNRS staff, the registration fee will be covered by the ANF. For non-CNRS staff and external participants, the registration fee will be covered by your employer.

Course Prerequisites

The course will alternate between theory sessions and practical work on personal computers. The working environment will be RStudio. Thanks to the involvement of the French Institute of Bioinformatics, participants will be able to connect remotely to an RStudio environment containing all the packages required to carry out the analyses. It is therefore essential to arrive at the training course with a basic understanding of the R language (even though the commands used will remain simple), and an understanding of how to connect to remote machines via the SSH protocol. To cover these basics, an introductory course in R (free e-learning) will be offered to selected participants prior to the training course. Metabiodiv. A single half-day (Monday 28 September, afternoon) will be devoted to the R language as a refresher.

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Le projet européen TREASURE vise à améliorer la qualité environnementale des ports méditerranéens en expérimentant des solutions innovantes déjà identifiées, portant sur la qualité de l’eau, des sédiments et de l’air, la protection de la biodiversité, ainsi que la gestion des déchets et de l’énergie.

Objectif de l’évènement : Présenter les résultats des projets, partager les retours d’expérience des partenaires et des ports pilotes des projets, mettre en lumière des solutions innovantes et favoriser les échanges entre les acteurs de l’écosystème maritime.

Programme

Le 29 septembre 2026 : Final event TREASURE

• Présentation des résultats du projet TREASURE et retours d’expérience de ports partenaires du projet, notamment sur les activités d’amélioration de qualité environnementale des ports ;
• Présentation de solutions innovantes de remédiation environnementale ;
• Une session B2B avec des autorités portuaires ;
• Visite du site d’ENVISAN, Jan de Nul.

Le 30 septembre 2026 : Business Maritime Day

• Conférence sur les enjeux stratégiques de la désinformation dans le secteur maritime et présentation de projets européens ;
• Visite de la rade en navette et démonstration de drones sur le terminal fret de Brégaillon.

Les inscriptions à ces évènements sont gratuites mais obligatoires. Vouz pouvez-vous inscrire dès à présent !

• 29 septembre : Inscription Final event TREASURE
• 30 septembre : Inscription Business Maritime Day

In November 2022, the French Hydrotechnical Society organised its first symposium on the interactions between developments on or beside watercourses and the quality of the ecosystems that surround them.

Three years have gone by, marked by a succession of episodes of severe drought or heavy rainfall, and we're offering you a chance to take stock of these issues in a new event for which we've chosen to extend the natural environments to the whole of the land-sea continuum, from rivers to coastal environments and their interfaces formed by estuaries and deltas.

Whether we are talking about streams, rivers, estuaries or coastal fringes, these aquatic environments constitute very specific biodiversity corridors, where the presence of water plays a major role, both in terms of the vital resource that it constitutes and the flows of matter that it carries or the habitats that it shapes. The biodiversity along these corridors, which is both rich and fragile, is highly sensitive to human disturbance; these corridors are also places of refuge, feeding and movement for other communities. In the alluvial valleys, the secondary arms of rivers, hydraulic appendages and marshes are of particular interest because of their ecological richness; in coastal areas, wetlands, bays, deltas and estuaries, foreshores, mudflats and dune zones also have their own specific features.

Developments along these biodiversity corridors, whether for industrial, protection or leisure purposes, or even restoration work, interact locally with the environment in all directions, but also on a larger scale along the main axis of these corridors. This is the case for alluvial valleys, where the flow of rivers leads to strong interactions between upstream and downstream, but also for coastal fringes where natural forces - currents, tides, swell, wind - and coastal transport lead to interactions along the coast.

More information