Comprehensive studies to address ocean science issues require synergistic collaboration across the globe between many subdisciplines including science, engineering, environment, society and economics. However, it is a challenge to unify these aspects under a common program or study, and as such has been recognized as a main goal of the United Nations “Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)”. Consequently, this session will bring together early-career representatives from a wide range of subdisciplines to demonstrate the strength of an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach when addressing global concerns, such as the dynamic impacts of climate change, focusing on the North Atlantic region as an example.

Continuous and comprehensive data is crucial to our understanding of the ocean. Yet, developing the advanced tools and technologies required for long-term ocean monitoring is not merely an engineering problem, as the data produced by these instruments will have future environmental and socio-economic impacts. A comprehensive view of the ocean also requires an understanding of past conditions. Thus, this session will also include contributions from paleo-oceanography to link the past to the future. In this vein, we will discuss our attempts at transdisciplinary and transcultural collaboration and share what we have learned for future approaches.

We invite contributions from a wide range of enthusiasts, including those in the natural sciences (e.g. biology, physics), applied sciences (e.g. engineering and technology, business), humanities (e.g. law), and social sciences (e.g. economics, political science). We also invite contributions from educators and administrators who are interested in experimenting with novel methods of building and encouraging research within interdisciplinary and multicultural graduate school programs.