Actions should in particular inform monitoring and assessments, including threshold setting, under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and more broadly support its implementation, the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, the zero pollution action plan, the evaluation and possible revision of the Single Use Plastics Directive as well as EU initiatives on microplastics (such as under REACH and reduction of plastic pellets releases). Actions will also contribute to the planned Global Agreement to End Plastic Pollution and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Proposals should demonstrate how they will contribute significantly at EU level to all of the following:

• enhance data acquisition, quality assurance and quality control approaches, and effective use of available data from source-to-sea including lake, riverine, groundwater, coastline, sea surface and seabed monitoring of (plastic) litter including (different types of) microplastics, making use of diverse data sources (incl. data collected by citizen science initiatives) and new technologies to improve quantitative knowledge on pollution sources, pathways, spatial distribution and accumulation zones, including on the seabed, leakage and transport at EU scale and at basin level;
• develop scientific approaches as well as environmentally relevant reference materials and matrices needed to design harmonised methods for detecting, identifying, classifying, and quantifying plastic and microplastic pollution in realistic conditions, which will enable a comprehensive assessment of the exposure of aquatic biodiversity to litter;
• improve tools and methodologies for efficient and where possible autonomous sampling, developing rapid and reliable analytical methods and imaging techniques for seabed macro litter and monitoring of microplastic pollution to address policy needs;
• develop analytical methods for detecting, characterising and monitoring nanoplastic particles in aquatic environments;
• develop, improve and implement fit-for-purpose, optimised, validated, harmonised and cost-effective monitoring strategies for freshwater, coastal and marine environments and collaborative data collection across borders, which need to be implemented on a sufficient scale to assess the problem;
• enable the uptake of monitoring data in large scale databases (e.g. the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) and the European Digital Twin of the Ocean) following FAIR principles, to ensure public data accessibility and use and foster a comprehensive assessments of litter pollution at European level.