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Join us for our next SMMR webinar, where we will hear from Dr Chis Leakey and Professor Abigail McQuatters-Gollop, followed by a Q and A session.

Dr Chris Leakey (MASTS and the People Ocean Planet iniative)

Dive-In, an interdisciplinary museum exhibition for public engagement in marine science and climate action.

Chris Leakey from MASTS and their People Ocean Planet initiative will talk about a recent collaboration between a museum, designers, climate communication specialists and marine scientists, developing and testing an exhibition of marine science that aimed to stimulate behavioural change in audiences.

Professor Abigail McQuatters-Gollop (University of Plymouth)

From science to policy: Connecting research and data to decision making

Biodiversity data and research are essential for informing management and policy, particularly in supporting the new generation of marine legislative drivers, which take a holistic ecosystem approach to management. In Europe, for example, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) seeks to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of European seas, while at the global scale UN Sustainable Development Goal SDG14 strives to “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. These instruments recognise the importance of biodiversity and marine ecosystems, but appropriate biodiversity data and research needed to support their implementation, assessment, and reporting. Communicating biodiversity data and science into policy requires multiple approaches from formal engagement to casual communication over social media. From project conception through to policy assessment, innovative and active engagement methods should be used to gain policy feedback, help frame the science in policy terms, and gather consensus from the wider scientific research community. Open communication and trust between scientists and decision-makers is instrumental to successfully using biodiversity science to fulfil policy needs.