Ocean Assemblage

The recently established Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System/Système Intégré d’Observation des Océans du Canada (CIOOS/SIOOC) is a national effort to facilitate the knowledge exchange in ocean sciences and to make oceanographic data from various public, private and academic stakeholders discoverable and accessible to the end-user. It is an initiative that is jointly funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and the Marine Environmental, Observation, Prediction and Response Network (MEOPAR).

In it’s pilot phase (2018 – 2020) CIOOS/SIOOC established three regional associations (RA); Pacific, St. Lawrence, and Atlantic, that will each build a data infrastructure in collaboration with their regional data providers and users. A national, centralized, open and web-based platform will aggregate the regionally managed ocean data, supporting a one-stop-shop approach to the discovery and access of information for ocean related research and decision making. Interoperability with international standards and organisations is an important aspect of the CIOOS/SIOOC initiative and will enable contributions to the global effort of better understanding the ocean, it’s issues and interactions with other earth systems.

In order for the RA’s to mutually agree on metadata best practises and a standard that is contributing to CIOOS/SIOOC’s initial Essential Ocean Variables (EOV) being FAIR compliant, the Metadata Working Group was established in early 2019. One of the main working group deliverables will be the development of a metadata profile that is based on ISO 19115 and sufficiently describes all relevant aspects of the EOV. In addition, topics including controlled vocabularies, persistent identifiers, granularity, quality control, workflows and tools will be addressed and recommendations formulated. Besides CIOOS/SIOOC partners including Ocean Networks Canada, St. Lawrence Global Observatory, Ocean Tracking Network, Ocean Frontier Institute, OTN/MEOPAR Glider Program, and the Hakai Institute, non-CIOOS/SIOOC stakeholders such as MERIDIAN and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, have been invited to contribute to the metadata working group. This measure will ensure that the decisions made and recommendations suggested are consistent, agreeable and compliant with other Canadian members of the ocean community. Even though passive acoustic data are not part of the initial set of CIOOS/SIOOC EOVs, we, as in MERIDIAN, appreciate the opportunity and hope that we can pave the way for a smooth integration of acoustic data at a later stage.

Join us to witness what policymakers, stakeholders from many Atlantic coastal countries and beyond, and our many EU funded projects have achieved since we navigated together on our Atlantic Journey in 2013 with the signing of the Galway Statement and the signing of Belém Statement in 2017.

The All-Atlantic Ocean Research Forum will gather political and community leaders, researchers, industry, Youth Ambassadors and, inspirational speakers from along and across the Atlantic, from the Arctic to Antarctica, to showcase the results of cooperation and their impact on the citizens living on the shores of the Atlantic.

So save the date and spread the word: we already look forward to welcoming you to the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Forum on 6 – 7 February 2020!

The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030 presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver scientific knowledge, foster technological innovation, and build capacity to achieve the 2030 Agenda and reverse the decline of ocean health. This will be a truly global effort based on inclusive partnerships flourishing in a global research and innovation ecosystem. Following the First Global Planning Meeting held last May in Denmark, a North Atlantic Workshop will be convened 7-10 January 2020, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This event, hosted by Ocean Frontier Institute, is made possible by the financial contribution from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and co-organized with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) as coordinating body for the Decade. The workshop is aligned with the activities of the trilateral Canada-EU-USA Galway Statement and its Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance that will help support the UN Decade.

This event will provide a forum to gather approximately 100 ocean leaders/champions/key stakeholders to further discuss and prioritize the issues identified at the First Global Planning Meeting. Plenary and working groups will facilitate regional, interdisciplinary discussions across sectors, such as ocean science and technology, ocean policy and sustainable development, business and industry, NGOs and civil society, and donors and foundations, to identify concrete deliverables and partnerships to meet the Decade’s six societal objectives:

• A clean ocean
• A healthy and resilient ocean
• A predicted ocean
• A safe ocean
• A sustainably harvested and productive ocean
• A transparent and accessible ocean

The North Atlantic Workshop offers a crucial opportunity to co-design mission-oriented research strategies in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Plan of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment and Coastal Areas in the North Atlantic, focusing on the needs and priorities of Northern Atlantic countries in terms of transforming knowledge systems; accelerating transfer of technology; enabling training and education; and fostering science-policy dialogues.

The North Atlantic Workshop will aim to identify:

• Knowledge gaps and regional ocean science priorities for the 2030 Agenda and the North Atlantic Action Plan
• Existing relevant partnerships/networks/initiatives and potential interested partners
• Priorities in capacity-development/training
• Priority themes and topics to be addressed by the Decade
• Other regional initiatives and meetings to be aligned with the Decade

REGISTRATION, FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND SELECTION

The deadline for expression of interest to participate in the workshop is November 15th, 2019. Selected participants will be notified directly via email by December 2nd, 2019; financial support may be available for a limited number of invitees.

More information on the NA Workshop coming soon.

The Blue Innovation Symposium is the premier event in New England for connecting the marine technology industry for education, networking and facilitating partnering opportunities. Held in Newport, Rhode Island, this conference brings together a broad spectrum of representatives of the marine technology industry from the US and beyond.

Last year’s conference brought together more than 250 attendees, 36 corporate sponsors, and key community members including representatives from the US Navy, the US Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC), the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the University of Rhode Island, the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology (MSET), and many more.

The symposium intends to bring together leading-edge marine technology companies for programming aimed at providing an overview of current trends in the industry, and a showcase of companies to discuss their new technologies.

The Blue Innovation Symposium is organized by Salve Regina’s Office of Graduate Studies and Continuing Education as part of our effort to connect the University with industry, organizations, state and federal agencies, and other key stakeholders in order to grow the region’s economy.

There is growing interest in evidence-based conservation, yet there are no widely accepted standard definitions of evidence, let alone guidance on how to use it in the context of conservation and natural resource management practice. In this talk, I will first draw on insights of evidence-based practice from different disciplines to define evidence as being “the relevant information used to assess one or more hypotheses related to a question of interest.” I then present a typology of different kinds of information, hypotheses, and evidence and show how these different types can be used in different steps of conservation practice. In particular, it is important to distinguish between specific evidence used to assess project hypotheses and generic evidence used to assess generic hypotheses. I next build on this typology to develop a decision tree to support practitioners in how to appropriately use available specific and generic evidence in a given conservation situation. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of how to better promote and enable evidence-based conservation in projects and across the discipline of conservation, including the development of different types of shared evidence libraries.

Co-sponsors: OCTO (OpenChannels, The Skimmer, MPA News, EBM Tools Network)