Publications
Position Paper: Delivering meaningful engagement of Early Career Ocean Professionals and Youth in International Knowledge/Science-Policy-Society Interface
This position paper emphasises the critical need to meaningfully integrate Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPs) and Youth into international knowledge-policy-society interfaces. While various initiatives and networks have emerged to support ECOP and Youth inclusion, persistent structural, financial, and cultural barriers hinder their equitable participation and recognition. The paper outlines actionable strategies to address these challenges, including involving ECOPs and Youth in governance and strategy- setting from inception, securing institutional and financial support, and fostering capacity-building and intergenerational collaboration. By empowering ECOPs and Youth through inclusive practices, dedicated funding, and cross-regional partnerships, the international ocean community can leverage their energy, innovation, and unique perspectives to drive sustainable, future-focused ocean action and uphold intergenerational equity.
Position Paper, 2025
Strengthening the seascape of global environmental assessments to support ocean sustainability
Ambitious evidence-based policies are urgently needed to redirect mankind’s trajectory towardsocean sustainability. While global environmental assessments (GEAs) synthesizing ocean knowledgeare multiplying, we must ensure that their processes and outputs are conducive to social legitimacy,scientific credibility, and meet decision-makers’needs. Here, we identify best practices for GEAs toachieve legitimacy, credibility, and salience and develop a framework to evaluate their levels ofimplementation.
Ocean Sustainability, March 2025
Towards IPOS: Consultation Report
The Consultation Report shows the process that went into designing the IPOS, its governance and its ways of answering requests.
Consultation report, February 2025
The IPOS Strategic Overview
The Strategic Overview details what the IPOS will be and represents an in-depth work of six months, conducted by experts and including diverse international consultations. It includes information regarding the need for a sustainable ocean, the IPOS governance and the different sets of actions it will offer to States who need its assistance.
Strategic Overview, January 2025
Towards IPOS: Shaping Ocean-Knowledge-Policy interfaces
In August 2024, the Towards IPOS initiative and the Executive Secretary of PainelMar attended meetings with Brazilian authorities and co-organized a G20/O20 Ocean Dialogues event. The mission aimed to connect local ocean governance with global efforts, emphasizing transdisciplinary collaboration and showcasing case studies from Brazil and South Africa to highlight the importance of producing relevant, demand-driven knowledge for sustainable development.
Meeting report, August 2024
Shaping IPOS: Southern perspectives on optimising the science-policy interface
During the UN Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona in April, the Towards IPOS team was present and hosted a side-event, integrating insights from Global South experts and practitioners to discuss knowledge priorities and best practices for the science-policy interface.
Meeting report, April 2024
Towards IPOS: The Gateway between ocean knowledge and policy action
Towards IPOS hosted a side event during the Monaco Ocean Week in March, gathering high-level stakeholders to discuss the global ocean knowledge-decision interface.
Meeting report, March 2024
Bridging Shades of Blue: Co-constructing knowledge with the International Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS)
A diverse group of Ocean knowledge holders, including policymakers, small-scale fishers, marine social scientists and ocean lawyers gathered to reflect on the key features, challenges, strategies, actors to be involved, as well as pathways to balance power for advancing an inclusive and equitable IPOS.
Taylor and Francis Online, August 2023
Seascape Assessment: Feasibility Study for the establishment of an Intergovernmental Panel for Ocean Sustainability (IPOS)
The Seascape Assessment report commissioned by DG MARE analyses organisations, both global and European, that provide information about the state of the ocean.
Publication office of the European Union, August 2023
An evolution towards scientific consensus for a sustainable
ocean future
This paper introduces the Towards IPOS initiative as a coordinating mechanism to integrate knowledge systems to forge a bridge across ocean science-policy divides collectively. The aim is to enrich the global policy debate in the Ocean Decade and support a shift toward ocean sustainability.
Nature Partner Journals Ocean Sustainability, December 2022
