EuroSea is convening a session on science-policy dialogue at the upcoming Ocean Best Practices global workshop. Ocean Best Practices is an international effort coordinated by IOC-UNESCO to deliver best available experience on procedures and practices for the oceanographic community, across a broad spectrum of topics.

We are convening the workshop’s Session 16 on Ocean Best Practices & Ocean Policies. This session will examine the links between marine scientific practice on the one hand and policies on the other. Such links occur in many different ways. Scientific results can form the foundation for particular ocean policies. In turn, ocean-related policies require science to deliver on policy objectives.

The establishment of best practices is one method of improving this interaction between ocean science and policy. Best practices can function not only as standards of how to conduct particular sustainable ocean observations, but also illustrations of how to place the observations in the context of ocean policies.

The development of best practices should take into account the normative value of obligations to use best environmental practices, the best available technologies and capabilities to achieve results, and best practices of how to bring the scientific results to policy and decision-makers. This session hopes to shed light on all these issues, coming from both a scientific, legal, and policy perspectives. The discussions will contribute to the EuroSea deliverable on ‘Lessons Learnt on Science-Policy Interface’.

The session will translate into two parts. Part on 13 October will address how policy deals with best practice from science, Part 2 on 17 October will deal with ways of improving the impact of science on policy. After a short introduction to each part, speakers will give fifteen-minute talks. We will then have about forty-five minutes left for moderated discussions with the session participants.

Session agenda:

Register to the Ocean Best Practices Workshop here!