Baris Salihoglu ^1,2* Mustafa Yücel ³ Pinar Uygurer ³ Ezgi Şahin Yücel ³ Evangelos Papathanassiou ³ Devrim Tezcan ³ Adrian Stanica ⁴ Irina Stanciu ⁴ Snejana P. Moncheva ⁵ Nina Dzhembekova ⁵ Kremena Stefanova ⁵ Viktor Komorin ⁶ Tudor Castravet ⁷ Kakhaber Bilashvili ⁸ Valerian Melikidze ⁸ Mamuka Gvilava ⁹ Salome Kobaidze ⁸

• ¹ Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Türkiye
• ² Climate Change and Sustainable Development Application and Research Center, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Ankara, Türkiye
• ³ Institute of Marine Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Mersin, Mersin, Türkiye
• ⁴ National Research and Development Institute for Marine Geology and Geoecology, Bucharest, Romania
• ⁵ Institute Of Oceanology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Varna, Varna, Bulgaria
• ⁶ Ukrainian Scientific Center of Ecology of Sea (UkrSCES), Odesa, Ukraine
• ⁷ Ion Creangă Pedagogical State University, Chișinău, Moldova
• ⁸ Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
• ⁹ GIS and RS Consulting Center GeoGraphic Tbilisi, Tbilisi, Georgia

The Black Sea is a vital resource with vast potential to boost the societal value of the Blue Economy for its surrounding countries. Improved knowledge and enhanced infrastructure together with better coordination and alignment of research and innovation efforts are critical for the better management of the deteriorated Black Sea ecosystem to help restore and maintain its resilience and enable sustainable use of natural resources. In 2019, the Black Sea Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (Black Sea SRIA), was developed by the Black Sea experts, in cooperation with European marine institutes and organisations, with the support of the European Commission. Black Sea SRIA presents the priorities and ecosystem-based management options needed for a healthy, sustainable, and resilient Black Sea. Since 2019, efforts focused on developing concrete actions under the Black Sea SRIA Implementation Plan (IP) to contribute to the national blue economy strategies, better structuring of the relevant funding mechanisms for solution-oriented implementation and the international and regional strategies, supporting the co-funding mechanisms. In this study, we present a transnational process that has led to the development of the IP which utilized a bottom-up, co-design and co-creation-based approach. The SRIA and its IP support better governance of the blue economy principles towards sustainable development and conservation of unique Black Sea ecosystems. The Black Sea SRIA and IP address the fundamental research challenges of the region, promote the blue economy, and also build vital support systems and innovative research infrastructure and capacity together with academia, funding organizations, industry, policy, civil society and local communities. The IP is a long-lasting guide to catalyse new ideas and innovations towards and with the Black Sea community with strong implications for other sea basins.