Original photo credits: Susanne Schäfer and Ana Dinis

It’s been actively researched since 1872, and yet the deep-sea remains 95% unexplored, 75% unmapped and with 70% of its species unknown.

Small institutes, especially on islands with easy access to the deep sea, could play a major role in accelerating our understanding of the deep sea. However, major barriers to research stand in our way — usually expense, manpower or skills, and sometimes technological or data challenges that even the best deep-sea research institutes face.

The Impossible Things Workshop seeks to bring creative thinkers from beyond deep-sea research to help us explore solutions to these challenges. With your help, perhaps the deep sea can become just that little bit more accessible.

^ watch our recap video produced by Patrícia Nunes (MARE-Madeira)

Our next edition will take place 15-17 March 2027. Our open call for participants will run from Nov-Dec 2026.

Sign-up now to be a challenge leader!

We’re looking for engaging, high-energy challenge leaders who can foster positive, creative discussions with their teams and communicate their challenges in easy-to-understand ways. Are you struggling with a deep-sea research or conservation question that has you stumped? Would you like to lead a small team of diverse thinkers to come up with solutions to this problem? If your challenge is accepted, we’ll cover all your expenses for the workshop. Apply now until 15 October!

Apply now!

What is the Impossible Things Workshop?

The Impossible Things Workshop is an opportunity for marine scientists to join up with people from beyond marine science to brainstorm ways to reduce the costs and increase the accessibility of deep-sea research. Working in small teams, this workshop allows professional engineers, data scientists, entrepreneurs, social scientists, artists, backyard tinkerers and anyone else interested to imagine and prototype as many low-cost solutions to deep-sea research challenges as (im)possible.

What do we hope to achieve?

The goal of The Impossible Things Workshop is to share knowledge and ideas for low-cost deep-sea research in an open, collaborative way. From this brainstorming, we hope to spur innovations or new ways of work that enable more institutes to venture farther into the ocean’s depths. All ideas are publicly shared and connections made during the workshop can help take any promising ideas to the next stage of development.

How can I get involved?

The next Impossible Things workshop is planned for March 2027. Follow us on social media or come back to this website in September 2026 when we’ll open applications for challenge leaders, or in November when we’ll open applications for participants! We are also looking for sponsors to help us make 2027 a success, and some sponsorship levels come with guaranteed places at the workshop — contact us to learn more.

Highlights from 2025

This workshop, like all TWILIGHTED activities, is funded by the European Union. We are also grateful for the additional support provided by