European Project on Ocean Acidification

The European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) was Europe's first major research initiative and the first large-scale international research effort devoted to studying the impacts and consequences of ocean acidification.

The EPOCA consortium brought together more than 160 researchers from 32 institutes in 10 European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) and was coordinated by the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with the project office based at the Institut de la Mer de Villefranche, France (formerly Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche).

[2] The research carried out through EPOCA was structured around four themes : EPOCA significantly contributed to advancing the state of knowledge on ocean acidification and its impact on marine organisms and ecosystems.

The project produced more than 200 research articles, equivalent to 20% of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on ocean acidification published during the period 2009-2012.

[4][5] EPOCA leaves behind products still widely used by the international scientific community working on ocean acidification, such as :