CoastalPro

04 — Communication & Policy Framework

Awareness, dissemination and policy impact

CoastalPro communicated its results across Europe and turned them into policy input — from the project website and policy briefs to the joint paper “Blue Skills to Blue Careers” and the proposed CoastTourComp framework.

Blue Skills to Blue Careers

Blue Skills to Blue Careers policy paper infographic — barriers, what worked in practice, and key policy recommendations from seven EU Blue Careers projects.
Policy paper summary produced jointly by seven EU-funded Blue Careers projects.

The joint policy paper began as an inter-project workshop (D6.6) at European Ocean Days, March 2026, where sister Blue Careers projects agreed a shared policy message rather than separate pitches. The drafting team turned that into the paper “Blue Skills to Blue Careers”, endorsed by the participating consortia.

Its core message: blue careers fail at the transition points, not at training. Learners can find courses, but employers cannot read what a course certifies. The paper calls for a common blueprint for blue micro-credentials — minimum requirements for learning outcomes, assessment, issuer identity and verification — implemented through Europass and the European Learning Model.

CoastTourComp — a coastal tourism competence framework

The final policy feedback proposes CoastTourComp, a Coastal and Maritime Tourism Competence Framework that bridges existing blue-economy and tourism competence systems rather than competing with either. Every competence is traceable to its parent framework, inheriting BLUECOMP's five mastery levels.

  • BLUECOMP — cross-sectoral competences for the sustainable blue economy.
  • NTG/PANTOUR — digital, green, social and transversal skills for tourism occupations.
  • CoastTourComp — contextualises both for coastal and maritime tourism, with sector-specific outcomes and assessment evidence.
  • EQF and ESCO — connect learning outcomes to qualification levels and labour-market terminology.

The six CoastalPro modules are offered as the first demonstrator curriculum, mapped against CoastTourComp, BLUECOMP, the tourism skills matrix, EntreComp, EQF and ESCO.