Blue-Cloud 2026 - D6.6 Blue Cloud Hackathon 2025 Report

The Blue-Cloud Hackathon 2025 is a collaborative event organised in the framework of Work Package 6 ("Outreach, Engagement, and Education) of the Horizon Europe "Blue-Cloud 2026" project, which aims to promote and disseminate Key Exploitable Results (KER) stemming from the project to key target audiences. The main objective of the hackathon is to bring together scientists, researchers, developers, and innovators to explore and test the open science environment evolved by the Blue-Cloud 2026 project and its related services. The hackathon serves as a gateway to promote the Blue-Cloud open science platform and services to diverse marine and environmental communities, encourage the testing, adoption, and further development of Blue-Cloud services, and collect valuable user feedback to improve available services. The event took place in September – October 2025 and brought together over one thousand participants from across the globe for a dynamic, fully virtual, hands-on innovation experience. Designed as an inclusive and collaborative event, the hackathon welcomed marine scientists, data experts, software developers, students, and ocean enthusiasts to work together in multidisciplinary teams. A total of 1,140 participants registered for the hackathon, and 348 successfully joined effort in forming 70 eligible teams across 4 challenges, namely: (1) Mapping and Understanding Marine Ecosystems and Species; (2) Supporting Early Warning and Response to Accidents or Natural Events; (3)Tracking and Forecasting Ocean Health; (4) Wild Card: Team up with EDITO. Teams represented an impressive mix of scientific, technical, and creative expertise, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of the Blue-Cloud community. Participants were invited to explore and combine the powerful data, models, and services provided by the Blue-Cloud platform and the European Digital Twin Ocean (EDITO) initiative. The hackathon served as a real-world testbed for the Blue-Cloud 2026 project's federated, FAIR-compliant architecture, which integrates diverse marine data sources and analytical tools within a Virtual Research Environment (VRE). Three Teams were awarded winners of the event. By leveraging cutting-edge digital infrastructures — including Blue-Cloud Virtual Labs, Thematic Workbenches, and interoperable data access services — participants were empowered to develop innovative, data-driven solutions addressing critical ocean challenges, from biodiversity loss and marine pollution to ecosystem monitoring and climate resilience. These technical components enabled real-time experimentation, prototyping, and co-development of workflows, using harmonised datasets and reusable analytical tools. The event not only demonstrated the growing maturity of the Blue-Cloud 2026 ecosystem but also reinforced its core mission: to accelerate open science, foster cross-sector collaboration, and drive digital innovation for sustainable ocean management. Through community engagement and co-creation, the hackathon showcased the potential of core and thematic services deployed by the Blue-Cloud 2026 project to support both EU policy objectives and global marine research efforts.