The Danube Delta Living Lab is a collaborative initiative that brings people, ideas and actions together in a “living” field of cooperation. It operates as a living system of collaboration, learning and action, with three core goals: reducing marine pollution, promoting the circular economy, and developing sustainable practices in the Danube Delta and Black Sea region.
The Living Lab brings together research projects, innovation initiatives, local organisations and professionals, schools and residents. The aim is to connect immediate environmental action with long-term systemic change, creating a dynamic community of practice.
The Danube Delta Living Lab is one of several replication Living Labs established under PHAROS, alongside sites in Gran Canaria (Spain), Iceland, Ireland, Santorini (Greece) and Lanzarote. Each Living Lab adapts the PHAROS methodology to its local ecological and socio-economic context, while following a common framework for stakeholder engagement, co-creation and citizen science.
The Danube Delta is a massive wetland where the Danube River spills into the Black Sea, straddling Romania and Ukraine. It is one of Europe’s most important wetlands, famous for its birds, fish and staggering plant diversity. It acts like a giant natural filter, cleaning water as it passes through. However, this fragile and vital ecosystem is under increasing pressure from pollution, climate change, invasive species, and weaknesses in resource management and circular practices.
The protection of marine and terrestrial ecosystems requires coordinated action that links the marine environment with water, energy, food and waste management on land. Through a bioregional approach, the Living Lab promotes the restoration of ecological balance and the strengthening of resilience in local ecosystems across the Danube basin, the Black Sea and the surrounding territories of Ukraine, Romania and Moldova.
The Danube Delta Open Living Lab officially launched in spring 2025, building a network of contributors including locals, visitors, school groups and NGOs. The framework for the Living Lab was developed by the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology in Kyiv, drawing on the priorities of the PHAROS project (Lighthouse for Atlantic and Arctic Basin), an EU-funded Horizon Europe project that supports the EU Mission to “Restore Our Ocean and Waters by 2030”.
The Living Lab is built on “open science” principles: the idea that research should be accessible, transparent and participatory. The citizen science platform operates through the European platform MINKA, where participants upload photographic observations with location and time stamps.
Read more about how citizens in Ukraine help scientific research by gathering wildlife photographs and providing information about their whereabouts.
More than 100 schoolkids from Odesa logged 300+ wildlife records in the Danube Delta for the EU’s PHAROS citizen science project. Here’s how a summer camp became real biodiversity data.
The Danube Delta, Europe’s largest remaining natural wetland and a crucial ecological buffer between the Danube River and the Black Sea, is now at the heart of a new citizen science initiative. The Danube Delta Open Living Lab has officially launched, creating a cross-border network that invites everyone, from local residents and school groups to…
The Danube Delta Living Lab is an ongoing process with three core goals: reducing marine pollution, promoting the circular economy, and developing sustainable practices. These are pursued through a bioregional approach linking marine, water, energy, food, waste on land. Its task: build data on species, track new arrivals, and monitor native‑alien interactions.
The collection method is even simpler: anyone can participate by uploading photographic observations with location and time stamps to the MINKA platform. MINKA is a free citizen science platform created by the Spanish National Research Council, allowing communities to set up local projects, share observations, and store data that scientists can actually use.
The data goes to Ukrainian researchers for analysis. With the observer’s permission, it can also feed into international repositories like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), helping scientists track biodiversity patterns across continents. The purpose of these activities is to test practical solutions in real conditions and build a community of practice that can sustain the transition beyond the project’s lifetime.
The goal is to position the Danube Delta as a model for circular, resilient and community-driven development. The Living Lab aims to create lasting change: reducing pollution through prevention and cleanup, shifting towards circular economy practices, and building resilience in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
By promoting a community-driven movement, the Living Lab can build a sense of stewardship that outlives the initial project, creating an enduring legacy of environmental ethos and citizen action.
In early July 2026, more than a hundred schoolkids from the Odesa region participated in a biological camp run by the NGO “Real People” at the Syniukha River valley. Fifteen of them engaged in a crash course in citizen science, logging over 300 wildlife records through the MINKA platform.
They learned to use the MINKA website and mobile app, analysed their results, and created poster presentations linking their work to a possible new Nature Reserve Fund object for Ukraine, with support from the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group, Rewilding Ukraine and the Danube Biosphere Reserve.
The Danube Delta Living Lab is coordinated by the Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (IZNASU). They are responsible for designing the framework for the Living Lab and providing expertise in biodiversity research, citizen science and participatory programmes.
Its activities are developed within the framework of the PHAROS project, with support from the National Institute of Research and Development for Biological Sciences at the Bucharest University, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, the Technical University of Denmark, and Lviv Polytechnic. Among the involved institutions in the region are the Institute of Marine Biology NASU, Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of the Sea, Institute of Hydrobiology NASU, Danube Biosphere Reserve, Kuyalnyk National Nature Park, NGO Mare Nostrum and other key players in ecology and wildlife management.
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