The Centre represents a non-United Nations regional organization with focus on the western Mediterranean area, but with a potential projection in all Ocean Basins, substantiated by several international cooperation projects in other continents. The vision and the mission are fully in line with the outcomes of the Decade of the Ocean Science, as the vision of the Centre is focused on the sea and on the exploitation of sea values in terms of a sustainable human, economic and knowledge development. The vision of the Centre is therefore for a cleaner, healthy Ocean, safe, predictable and accessible to people, able to support human subsistence and economy and to inspire empathy and engagement.

The Centre is committed to face the challenges of the Decade of Ocean Science, in particular:

•    The challenges related to the improvement of the sea status by understanding and fighting pollution, by protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity and by counteracting global climate changes; 

•    The challenges related to find marine food for the increasing human population and in general exploit a sustainable ocean economy;

•    The challenges related to the observation and knowledge of the Sea and to the development of predictive models for the marine environment;

•    The change of the human perception of the Sea through development of knowledge, skills and technologies able to build a new relationship with the marine environment.