Ocean Data Science Initiatives as oceans governance actors

The oceans are regarded as relatively under-studied and under-governed, especially at global and regional scales. By mobilizing data with the express goal of improving oceans governance, ocean data science initiatives (ODSIs) aim to address these gaps, and as such, are firmly situated in efforts to contribute to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development’s objective to provide the ‘science we need for the ocean we want.’ That is, rather than serving as technical providers of data and data products, ODSIs are important actors in oceans governance; to better understand them as such, we have compiled and published a catalog of 100 global and regional ODSIs, each of which focuses on data related to fisheries extraction, biodiversity conservation, or basic science. The catalog details ODSI features that we analyze in order to elaborate the multifaceted ways that ODSIs function within, and shape, the broader realms of global and regional oceans governance. These features relate to ODSI organizational architecture, governance characteristics, policy goals, and equity considerations. In this presentation, we review findings from analysis across the catalog to illuminate the common and diverse ways that ODSIs operate and the roles they play in the science-policy interface. Specifically, we will review how ODSIs draw on their data and data products to develop normative frames about challenges and solutions in the oceans, their work to develop the scientific infrastructure for ocean policy, if and how they elaborate specific policy goals, and their approaches to equity in oceans governance in general and specifically in relation to data practices. Our findings suggest that ODSIs emerge and evolve through a range of institutional processes inside and outside of formal policy forums, and that ODSIs are also transforming those frameworks by developing norms, institutions, practices and policy objectives that shape how data are valued, collected, organized, analyzed and acted upon. More broadly, our analysis offers a step towards situating vibrant science – and the organizations that create, circulate and co-produce such science in relation to changing conditions –  into the intersecting knowledge, policy and management processes that inform and constitute action in oceans governance.