"The European Multidisciplinary Seafloor Observation - Preparatory Phase (EMSO-PP) is a 4-year project with the main objective of establishing the legal and governance framework for EMSO, an infrastructure servicing scientists and other stakeholders in Europe and outside Europe for long-term deep water observation and investigation. The Preparatory Phase will handle all further actions towards the actual realisation of the infrastructure and its long-term management. Moreover, it will promote the catalytic process and synergic effort at EC and national levels, coordinating and harmonising all the resources made available, in link with the Network of Excellence ESONET. One peculiarity of the EMSO infrastructure, among the ones indicated within ESFRI, is that it is geographically distributed around European waters from the Arctic to the Mediterranean Sea EMSO cabled deep-sea observatories deployed on specific sites will allow – as a basic scientific objective – to make real-time long-term monitoring of environmental processes in the geosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere of European seas. The observatories will be organised in a unique management structure at European level which is part of an international endeavour in seafloor observatories. A pan-European Core Legal Entity (CLE) and several Regional Legal Entities (RLEs) will be defined and founded. The responsibilities of CLE and RLEs, with respect to their internal decision-making processes, as well as their external relations (to stakeholders, users, etc.) will be established. In the project, 9 work packages are envisaged to manage all the activities (including legal, governance, logistical, financial, strategic, and technical work). EMSO-PP will constitute a breakthrough towards a large scale European infrastructure progressing the scientific knowledge and technologies. It will providing an innovative mean for environmental monitoring and geo-hazard impact mitigation."