CONTEXT

The United Nations General Assembly has declared the decade 2021-2030 as the « Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development ». The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO is in charge of submitting a programme for this decade. To this purpose, a series of international events, workshops and symposia are organized to contribute to the work of IOC. IOC is assisted in this task by a group of 19 international experts, the Executive Planning Group.

OBJECTIVES

In this context, the Ocean University Initiative has proposed to the MARE conference in June 2019 to organize an international event, between conference and workshop. The aims are to gather researchers in the human and social sciences, in all their diversity, to identify central issues and conditions for the involvement of the social sciences in the UN initiative. Our event, under the name GLOSS (GLobal Ocean Social Sciences), has been labelled « Ocean Decade Event » by the IOC

METHOD

There will be 6 brainstorming sessions organized in small groups, 6 to 8 people around 1 table with a maximum of 120 participants. Each group will be invited to discuss on series of thematic, disciplinary and methodological questions with the aim of co-creating a ground-breaking report that will be submitted to the Executive Planning Group to be held in January 2020. This contribution will also feed the discussion at the Global Planning Meeting planned in June 2020 to gather the views of stakeholders before the adoption of the implementation plan for the decade by the United Nations General Assembly’s in November 2020.

VENUE AND REGISTRATION

The event will take place at « Le Quartz » congress hall in Brest (France) on November 5^th and 6^th.

Registration fee is 100 € to cover cost of lunches and organization, extra 30€ for those who wish to join for social dinner. We invite PhD students and Post-Doc to apply to act as group discussion rapporteur; registration fee waiver for selected candidates. See registration web page for conditions.