University of Montenegro (UoM) was founded in 1974 and is the oldest institution of higher education and at the same time the only state university in Montenegro. It has 19 faculties and three institutes, with an academic community of about 17,000 active students at all levels of study, and more than 1,000 academic, professional and other staff. Since 2004, classes at the University of Montenegro have been organized in accordance with the principles of the Bologna Declaration. UoM is actor of excellence for education and research in the field of telecommunications, computer science, electronics, energetics and control engineering in Montenegro. More precisely, this position is attained and maintained through activities organized and performed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), being one of the UoM founding units. UoM is responsible for most scientific publications in the country, and the FEE is one of the two most important actors in that regard. Today, being an institution of high education and research, the UoM’s FEE has three departments: Department for Power Systems and Automatic Control, Department for Electronics, Communications and Computer Engineering and Applied Computer Engineering. Within the departments, when research activities are concerned, the staff is organized in research centers and laboratories, which define different fields of their research interests. UoM’s MONUSEN team comprises of FEE researchers from the departments for Telecommunications and Automatic Control. FEE has implemented a multitude of research projects financed from national funds, EU funds, funds of NATO and bilateral cooperation. It has experience in EU FP7 projects, both as partner and coordinator, and it has been the country's largest FP7 beneficiary. R&I capacities of UoM-FEE have been recognized especially in a multidisciplinary context. An excellent example is BIO-ICT project (http://www.bio-ict.ac.me/) - the first Centre of Excellence in Montenegro, focused on development and implementation of innovative ICT-based solutions in various bio-economy sectors related to food safety and blue growth.

Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (UNIZG-FER) is part of University of Zagreb – the largest and oldest Croatian university. With 130 professors, 220 graduate teaching and research assistants, 4900 students enrolled in various programs, and operating in facilities of more than 35000 m2, UNIZG-FER is the largest technical high education institution and the leading educational and R&D institution in the fields of electrical and computer engineering and computer science in Croatia. UNIZG-FER is the highest-quality member of the University of Zagreb, with a large and modern infrastructure devoted to research-based education. UNIZG-FER is organised in 12 Departments which represent the focal points of education and R&D. Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST) is a research group within the Department of Control and Computer Engineering at the UNIZG-FER. At present, the Department consists of 14 professors and 60 researchers. LABUST (http://labust.fer.hr) research group has 17 members: 2 permanent staff, 1 professor emeritus, 1 senior researcher, 6 PhD students, 2 research engineers, 3 technical staff and 1 administrative person. The staff holds expertise in marine robotics: development and adaptation of marine vehicles (3 AUVs, 1 ASV); acoustic networks and sonars; identification, navigation, guidance and control of marine vessels; cooperative and coordinated formations of marine vehicles. LABUST is currently coordinating one national project, one ONR-G project and is a partner in one Horizon Europe project (MONUSEN). Recently they have coordinated two H2020 projects (Twinning EXCELLABUST and FET LaunchPad APAD) as well as two FP7 projects (FP7-ICT CADDY and FP7 CURE). In the last 5 years the group has participated in more than 20 international and national projects related to marine robotics. The LABUST group has experience in developing guidance and control software for industry. They have organised 13 annual field trainings “Breaking the Surface” with the purpose of conducting multidisciplinary research within marine biology, archaeology, and security.

National Research Council of Italy (CNR) is a public organization committed to carry out, promote, spread and transfer research activities in the main sectors of knowledge growth. CNR is structured in seven departments (Earth and environmental sciences; Bio-Agriculture and food; Biomedicine; Chemistry and Material technologies; Condensed Matter; Engineering, ICT, Energy and Transport; Human, social sciences and cultural heritage), 110 research institutes and about 4000 researchers. The institute involved in MONUSEN is CNR-INM (INstitute of Marine engineering), which was founded in 2018 integrating the expertise, experience, and history of three CNR institutes: the Marine Technology Research Institute (INSEAN), the Genoa and Palermo branches of the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation (ISSIA), and the Institute of Acoustics and Sensors “Orso Mario Corbino” (IDASC). CNR-INM mission is to conduct research, foster innovation and competitiveness of the National industrial system, promote the internationalization of the National research system, provide technological solutions to emerging public and private sector needs and challenges, and foster the personal and professional growth of human resources. CNR-INM develops computational tools and experimental setups in order to carry out the research work and to perform service/consultancy for industrial partners. CNR-INM has a long record of research projects funded by EU starting from FP4 framework, by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and by the US Office of Naval Research.

The Intelligent Sensing and Communications (ISC) group at Newcastle University (UNEW) has a track record spanning over 20 years on underwater acoustic communications, positioning, sonar and wireless sensor networks, with >£10M in funding from national research councils, EC, MoD and industry. Key contributions of the group have been the development of multi-channel receivers which incorporate adaptive algorithms for Doppler tracking and multipath suppression, achieving communication at rates of up to 100kbits/s over short distances and lower rate communication up to 100km. They coordinated the EU project Long Range Telemetry in Ultra-Shallow Channels (MAS3-CT97-0099) and partnered in Shallow Water Acoustic Network (MAS3-CT97-0107), Acoustic Communication Network for the Monitoring of the Underwater Environment in Coastal Areas - (EVK3-CT-2000-00039). More recently the team has focused efforts on the development of miniature, low-cost underwater communication and positioning technology based on robust spread spectrum techniques. The group partnered in the EU projects Cognitive Autonomous Diver Assistant (CADDY), developing communications and positioning for an autonomous diver assistance vehicle, and NetTag, developing miniature acoustic transponders for lost fishing gear. They also led the £1.3M EPSRC project “USMART - Smart dust for large scale underwater wireless sensing” to develop large scale underwater sensor networks. The group has an outstanding track record in hardware implementation and the design and execution of field trials in the North Sea, Atlantic and Mediterranean. The team’s acoustic communication and positioning technology has been successfully commercialised by companies in the UK and Italy.