Iliad Symposium
Oceans 2025 Brest
Monday 16th June - Thursday 19th June, 2025, Brest, France
The Iliad Symposium and General Assembly is scheduled to take place from Monday, 16 June to Thursday, 19 June 2025, in Brest, France. This event will be held alongside the OCEANS 2025 Brest conference, offering a unique opportunity for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and networking within the marine and oceanographic research community. Participants can look forward to engaging presentations, discussions, and workshops focused on advancing ocean science and technology.
The OCEANS 2025 Brest conference is a premier event dedicated to the advancement of maritime technologies and sustainable ocean practices. Hosted at Le Quartz in Brest from 16 to 19 June 2025, it brings together global maritime professionals to explore innovative solutions for utilising and protecting the world’s oceans.
The conference offers an unparalleled platform for knowledge sharing and networking, with over 800 attendees expected to join industry experts, engineers, policymakers, and researchers. Attendees will have access to a wealth of expertise through the presentation of more than 400 technical papers covering cutting-edge research and practical applications in marine science and technology.
The Iliad Symposium, held in conjunction with OCEANS 2025, aims to foster collaboration among experts in ocean science, technology, and policy.
Participants can anticipate a comprehensive programme featuring:
- Technical Sessions: Presentations on the latest research findings, technological advancements, and innovative methodologies in oceanography and marine engineering.
- Workshops: Interactive sessions designed to address current challenges and develop actionable strategies for sustainable ocean utilisation and conservation.
- Networking Opportunities: Events facilitating connections among professionals, academics, and industry leaders to encourage partnerships and collaborative initiatives.
Iliad and BlueCloud26 will be convening a joint booth at the OCEANS 2025 Brest conference, providing an excellent opportunity for attendees to learn more about our initiatives. Please visit us at booth 35, where our team will be available to discuss our projects, answer questions, and explore potential collaborations.
The Iliad project will also be hosting six sessions at the conference, covering a range of topics related to ocean research and innovation. Full details of the Iliad sessions can be found on the OCEANS 2025 Brest website.
Iliad and Blue Cloud 2026 Joint Workshop @ OCEAN 2025
16 June 2025 10 am - 6 pm CEST
Services and solutions for thematic and local digital twins of the ocean
Second Federation and Digital Twins of the Ocean Interoperability Joint Workshops
The OCEANS 2025 Brest conference is a premier event dedicated to the advancement of maritime technologies and sustainable ocean practices. Hosted at Le Quartz in Brest from 16 to 19 June 2025, it brings together global maritime professionals to explore innovative solutions for utilising and protecting the world’s oceans.
The workshop will include both one demonstration oriented solution track and one technical services track and joint sessions for both tracks.
Introducing a federated and interoperability focused approach, where research infrastructures and technological providers make their services available to the community via agreed data management principles (GEO, FAIR, CARE, TRUST) and Open Science technology, can add that extra contribution to the sharing of knowledge, ultimately stimulating uptake of services and the development of new tools and products. The services can include one or more steps of a digital twin pipeline from observations and sensors, to data management through data spaces and data lakes including support for semantic interoperability, data discovery and access, to digital twin engine and processing services with orchestration of workflows and support for virtual research and analysis environments with AI/Machine learning and predictions/what-if analysis to visualisation and interaction.
Blue-Cloud 2026 and Iliad cordially invite you to join the combined second Federation and second Digital Twins of the Ocean Interoperability (DTO-INTEROP) workshops to present your digital twins of the ocean related technologies, services and tools to the broad marine community gathered in Brest for OCEANS2025. We will welcome presentations of best practices and demonstrations of implementations of these services and tools into local, thematic and regional digital twins of the ocean. In particular we welcome presentations of approaches that will combine data and models from various domains such as biodiversity and socio-ecological ecosystems with metocean data, including federation and interoperability with EMODNet, CMEMS and EDITO, for various thematic and local digital twins of the ocean.
See links to the first Federation and first DTO-INTEROP workshops.
Abstract submission
Your abstract should be a maximum of 2 pages in PDF format, providing a brief description of your service, tool or product, how it can be used or is suited to be used in a digital twin of the ocean, including data, technologies and interoperability approaches, along with an outline of what you will present or demonstrate at the workshop.
Abstract deadline: 1st March 2025
Extended deadline: Monday 24th March 2025
We’ve extended the submission deadline, and now our goal is to finalise the programme by the end of March. This timeline is designed so that you have enough time to decide whether to join the wider conference and take advantage of the early bird discount if you wish.
Type of presentations: Demonstrations, oral presentations and posters
Workshop organizing committee
Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Rita Meneses, Dick M.A Schaap (Blue-Cloud 2026) Bente Lilja Bye, Arne-Jørgen Berre, Garabet Kazanjian, Simon Keeble, Simon van Dam, Menelaos Chatziapostolidis (Iliad)
Abstract submissions closed.
Agenda
Main Session
| Time | Session title |
|---|---|
| 9:00 - 9:30 | Registration and welcome coffee |
09.30 - 11:00 | Opening SessionSara Pittonet Gaiarin, Blue-Cloud Project Coordinator, Trust-IT Services Bente Bye, Iliad |
| 09:30 - 09.45 | Welcome to Brest René Garello, Professor Emeritus IMT Atlantique |
| 09:35 - 09.40 | Introduction to the Workshop and the Session Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Blue-Cloud Project Coordinator, Trust-IT Services Bente Bye, Iliad |
| 09:40 - 09.50 | Keynote: Digital Twins and the European Ocean Pact. What's next? Zoi Konstantinou, DG Mare |
| 9:50 - 10:00 | Policy Context: Setting the scene Garabet Kazanjian, Assistant Professor at American University of Armenia |
| 10:00 - 10:10 | Summary from the First Federation and Digital Twins of the Ocean Interoperability Workshop, 2024 Dick Schaap, Blue-Cloud Technical Coordinator, MARIS Arne J. Berre, SINTEF Digital |
| 10:10 - 10:20 | EDITO: Meet the backbone infrastructure of the European Digital Twin Ocean Cyrielle Delvenne, VLIZ |
| 10:20 - 10:30 | Towards a Marine EOSC thematic Node in support of EDITO Sara Pittonet Gaiarin, Blue-Cloud Project Coordinator, Trust-IT Services |
| 10:30 - 10:40 | Iliad Digital twins of the ocean and Interoperability Arne J. Berre, SINTEF Digital |
| 10:40 - 11:00 | Q&A Session Moderators: Sara Pittonet & Bente Lilja Bye |
11:00 - 11:30 | Coffee Break and Poster Display |
Morning Parallel Sessions
| 11:30 - 13:00 | Tech Session 1: DTO Technologies and Interoperability Chair: Bente Bye | Demo Session 1: Towards a Marine thematic EOSC in support of EDITO Chair: Sara Pittonet Gaiarin |
Marco Amaro Oliveira, INSEC TEC Marco Amaro Oliveira, INSEC TEC Fernando Cassola, INSEC TEC A graph theory approach for Digital Twin Ocean Biswajit Basu, EcoTwin Yannick Leroy Digital Atlas of Fisheries for Ghanaian Fishermen Peter Teye Busumprah, OceanLoveNews | Marine Environmental Indicators Virtual Lab to assess the environmental status of marine areas Francesco Palermo, CMCC Antonios Parasyris, FORTH Lise Schrøder, Aalborg University iMAGINE - BlueCloud image AI/ML service Dick Schaap, Blue-Cloud Technical Coordinator, MARIS Developing regional digital twins for marine restoration in the CLIMAREST project Daniel Schroeder, SINTEF Dick Schaap, Blue-Cloud Technical Coordinator, MARIS | |
| Q&A Session | ||
| 13:00 - 14:30 | Lunch Break | |
Afternoon Parallel Sessions
Panel Conclusion & Next Steps
16:30 - 16:45 | Digital Twins of the Ocean: Think Global, Twin Local Garabet Kazanjian |
16:30 - 17:45 | Panel discussion Chair: Garabet Kazanjian Anton Ellenbroek, FAO Zoi Konstantinou, DG Mare Keynote Malcolm Heron, Executive Vice-President of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, and secondly as Adjunct Professor James Cook University, Australia |
17:45 - 18:00 | Conclusions - Summaries from Tech, Demos and Panels Chair: Sara Pittonet Gaiarin Chair: Bente Bye |
| 18:00 | End of Workshop |
| 19:00 | Networking Dinner |
Poster Displays
Posters will be showcased for the duration of the event for you to walk through and stop by while enjoying your coffee or tea. The current list of selected posters is available below.
Tuesday June 17: Iliad in Brest
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 08:30 - 09:15 | Plenary Session – Introduction General Chair Local Authorities |
| 09:15 - 10:45 | Plenary Session – Keynote Speakers Zoi Konstantinou, EU Policy Officer Bente Lilja Bye, CEO BYE Company Lucie Cocquempot, Researcher IFREMER |
| 10:45 - 11:00 | Presentation of the Societies Presentation future OCEANS conferences (Sanya & Monterey 2026) IEEE OES & MTS |
| 11:00 - 12:15 | Panel Session: Ocean & Climate IEEE OES & MTS |
| 12:15 | Exhibition Opening |
| 12:30 | Lunch Break |
| 14:00 - 17:45 | Iliad conference papers integrated in the OCEANS 2025 proceedings |
| 17:45 | End of Day 2 |
Tuesday 17 June 14h00 to 15h30 - Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean and Federated Interoperability architectures
Session Chair(s): A. Berre, D. Schaap
Digital Twins of the Ocean: From idea to practical execution - the paradigm of ILIAD
Konstantina Papachristopoulou
Digital Twins of the Ocean - Interoperability Pipeline Architecture
Arne Berre
Surfing knowledge: The Iliad Academy to support ocean literacy and digitization efforts
Garabet Kazanjian
Sensor Deployment and Data Delivery in the Digital Twin framework
Georgios Sylaios
ILIAD approach for semantic Interoperability in Digital Twins of the Ocean
Raul Palma
Tuesday 17 June 16h15 to 17h45 - Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean in Practice - Part 1
Session Chair(s): A. Vasilijevic
Coastal Crete: A Digital Twin of the Ocean for Oil Spill Identification and Forecasting
Antonios Parasyris
Operational oil-spill detection in the framework of Digital Twin using SAR imagery and Deep Learning
Stamatios Petalas
A Domain-Agnostic Virtual Choreography Framework for Digital Twins: an Oil Spill application
Fernando Cassola
Short Term Operation & Maintenance Planning of Offshore Wind Farms: Holistic Development of a Digital Twin
Ricardo Pereira
Simulating Ocean Futures: A Digital Twin Pilot for Environmental Scenarios
Antonio Vasilijevic
Wednesday June 18: Iliad in Brest
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 08:45 - 12:30 | Iliad conference papers integrated in the OCEANS 2025 proceedings René Garello, Chair |
| 12:30 | Lunch Break |
| 14:00 - 17:45 | Iliad conference papers integrated in the OCEANS 2025 proceedings René Garello, Chair |
| 18:00 | End of Day 2 |
Wednesday 18 June 8h45 to 10h15- Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean in Practice - Part 2
Session Chair(s): C. Ipektsidis
Unveiling Indonesian Sea Surface Hidden Dynamics Using the FSLE Lagrangian Method
Christophe Maes
Ensemble Learning with Copy-Paste Augmentation for Robust Fish Species Identification Across Diverse Underwater Environments
Dong Nguyen
AI-aided systematic numerical modeling of AMOC surface conditions with multiple deep-learning architectures
Owen Jiang
AquaNav - Unmanned Surface Vehicle Simulator using Unreal Engine 5
Suresh Sundaram
Wednesday 18 June 11h00 to 12h30 - Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean in Practice - Part 2
Session Chair(s): C. Ipektsidis, A. Parasyris
Coastal Crete: The Ship routing/Harbor Safety Digital Twin of the Ocean
Antonios Parasyris
Addressing Invasive Species Threats at the Port of Valencia: A Digital Solution for Ballast Water Management
Rafael Company Peris
Integrating Citizen Science into Digital Twin Technologies for Coastal Ecosystem Management: Case Study of Cala Iris
Houssine Nibani
SCOast-DT: Creation and deployment of Space-based Digital Twins of Coastal Zones
Erwin Bergsma
Underwater Simulation for Autonomous Robotic Systems: A Comparative Study
Sara Aldhaheri
Wednesday 18 June 14h00 to 15h30 - Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean Best practices and Standards
Session Chair(s): J. Pearlman
Digital Twin of the Ocean Development with Standards and Best Practices
Sigmund Kluckner
Digital Twinning for Decision-making under Uncertain conditions; Modelling the distribution of Invasive Species using a Data Quality Ontology to facilitate Error Propagation Calculation and Visualization
Nkosana Mlandu
Implementing standards suite for Ocean Digital Twins in Iliad
Piotr Zaborowski
Towards a Virtual Twin for the Ocean: Technical Performance and Useability Testing of the 'Immersive Ocean Platform'
Xavier Fonseca
Lessons learned in establishing an environmental digital twin
Thomas Mansfield
Wednesday 18 June 16h15 to 17h45 - Room 8 (50)
Digital Twins of the Ocean Impact, Capacity and Citizen Science
Session Chair(s): B. Bye, P. Simpson
Digital twins of the ocean: Capacity development focusing on Interoperability, standards and best practices
Bente Lilja Bye
Governing Digital Twin-based Ecosystems for Ocean Sustainability
Yoana Adriyanova
Unlocking the Power of Ocean Digital Twins for Policy Stakeholders
Garabet Kazanjian
Unleashing the potential of the Blue economy through the Blue Tech Transfer tool
Sofia Parsadanyan
Engaging the public in scientific research to enhance digital twins of the ocean and their practical applications
Luigi Ceccaroni
Thursday 19 June – General Assembly Meeting
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 09:30 | Welcome-Registration – René |
| 09:45 | Introductory Remarks: Preparing for the Final Report and Review – Babis / PEB |
| 10:00 | WP1 - Co-designing the Digital Twins of the Oceans – Ricardo |
| 10:20 | WP2 - Data Acquisition from Pilots/Collection of Existing Databases – Georgios |
| 10:40 | WP3 - Citizen Engagement & integration of data from citizen science – Claire |
| 11:00 | Coffee Break – René |
| WP4 - ILIAD DTO – Ocean Interoperability Data Space – Vangelis | |
| 11:30 | WP5 - DTO Modeling and Analytics services – Marco |
| 11:50 | WP6 - User XP and UI Design, Dashboard and Immersive Visualization – Igor |
| 12:10 | WP7 - Demonstration and impact assessment of ILIAD pilots – Ute |
| 12:30 | Lunch Break – René |
| 14:00 | WP8 - Policy Impact Facility – Garabet |
| 14:20 | WP9 - Technology Transfer and Business Development – Raymond |
| 14:40 | WP10 - Stakeholder Engagement and Capacity Building – Bente |
| 15:00 | Coffee Break – René |
| 15:30 | WP11 - Outreach, Communication and Dissemination – Si |
| 15:50 | WP12 - Project Management – Konstantina |
| 16:10 | Concluding discussion: Iliad after Iliad – All |
| 16:30 | End of Day 4 |
