The project ULIXES (Unravelling and exploiting Mediterranean Sea microbial diversity and ecology for xenobiotics' and pollutants' clean up) aims to unravel, categorize, catalogue, exploit and manage the microbial diversity available in the Mediterranean Sea for addressing bioremediation of polluted marine sites. The idea behind ULIXES is that the multitude of diverse Environmentalonmental niches of the Mediterranean Sea contains a huge range of microorganisms and their components (e.g. catabolic enzymes) or products (e.g. biosurfactant) that can be exploited in pollutant- and site-tailored bioremediation approaches. ULIXES intends to provide the proof of concept that it is possible to establish and exploit for bioremediation site-specific collections of microbial strains, mixed microbial cultures, enzymes, bio-surfactants and other microbial products.