About

Project

Our water-based environments are facing major challenges. We are all individually and collectively responsible for their protection and health. This requires altering our relationship with our rivers, seas, and oceans, through systemic changes in our lifestyles and policies.   

Blue Genes is about the young blue generations. It reflects that our genes have evolved and will evolve through both hereditary symbiosis between different organisms and the epigenetic influence of our environment. But its meaning goes much beyond, as life implies an interdependence of psychological, biological, physical, social and cultural phenomena. Living beings do not only learn, react and evolve to the environment but they also co-produce and live the environment, their cognition and consciousness develops by interacting with the environment. This environmental cognition or action (enaction) defines how we live, as there is not a gap between sensing, feeling and being.

The Blue Genes community are people who share a common harmonic vision of our belonging to nature and to the Ocean as its central and essential component. We are concerned about the state of our oceans and want to find new ways to increase our connection and engagement with the marine environment, via the Arts & Sciences

THE TEAM

Ifigeneia G. Leontsini

Blue Genes coordinator

María Elena Carbajal

Marine social sciences

Noemí Fuster

Community engagement

Josep Lluis Pelegrí

Senior Researcher

Carine Simon

Citizen science, outreach and education

Vanessa Balagué

Culture and Science

THE SUPPORTERS

Meet the collaborators who have contributed their expertise and passion to the Blue Genes community. With their diverse skills and unwavering support, they play a vital role in shaping our mission!

  •  ​A Sud - Ecologia e Cooperazione, Italy
  • Anèl·lides, Spain
  • BAU College of Arts and Design of Barcelona, Spain ⭐
  • BlueGreen Vision, Spain
  • Christian Youth for Climate, Europe
  • ECOP Spain, Spain
  • ERINN Innovation Eurocean’s Youth Exxpedition, Ireland
  • Facultat de Nàutica de Barcelona (FNB-UPC), Spain
  • Galway Atlantaquaria Gloucestershire, Ireland
  • Youth Climate Group, Europe
  • Good Karma projects, Spain
  • ICM Young Researchers, Spain
  • Juste 2.0 ºC, France
  • La Fura dels Baus, Spain
  • Legambiente, Italy
  • Lobelia, Spain
  • Earth Mare Nostrum NGO, Romania
  • MaREI UCC, Ireland
  • Nordland Research Institute, Norway
  • North Wind Sailing for Science, Spain
  • Ocean Missions Iceland, Iceland
  • Oyster - Euromarne Network, Europe
  • Plastic Oceans, Worldwide
  • PLOCAN, Spain
  • Posidonia Green Project, Spain
  • Project Save World, Worldwide
  • Sanamares, Spain
  • Sea Teach, Spain
  • Stop Finning, Europe
  • Surfrider Foundation, Spain
  • Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Worldwide
  • The Blue Generation project, Norway
  • You Mares, Europe
  • Youth4Ocean Forum, Europe

BAU College of Arts and Design of Barcelona: At the inception of Blue Genes, BAU College of Arts and Design in Barcelona played a pivotal role, collaborating closely with the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM) to help shape the concept and direction of the initiative through intensive brainstorming sessions and initial support. While their direct involvement has evolved over time, their early contributions were instrumental in laying the foundation for what Blue Genes has become today.
The idea of a Blue Genes community arose in early 2022 from the preparation of a research proposal on the engagement of the young generations with the Ocean and waters. Following these preliminary contacts, we met for the first time on October 27, 2022. This first exploratory online workshop was a bottom-up way to share ideas about increasing peoples’ connections with our marine environment and ecosystems.