‘Valuing the Ocean’ is an initiative of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation that aims to enhance the environmental sector's ability to communicate the role of the ocean for human wellbeing, in particular by facilitating a collaboration between the fields of natural science and economics. The Foundation’s London branch has decided to take a laboratory approach with Marine CoLABoration to foster engagement and a shared, co-created vision.

Watch the short movie about the first year of Marine CoLAB, edited by Sue Ranger with contributions from the participants

Learn more about the Gulbenkian Oceans Initiative.

See events and opportunities, with links to upcoming conferences, workshops, fairs and other gatherings relevant to Marine CoLab.

The workshops are designed to provide the space and resources for a small group of organisations to meet regularly over a two-year period to explore existing practices, and identify and experiment with new ones. Marine CoLABoration is particularly interested in looking at how better to bridge the gaps between innovative local practice and influence at national and EU levels, and how to convey the intrinsic as well as socioeconomic value of the seas.

On 15 January 2015 a group of 16 people came together for a day-long workshop at the Gulbenkian Foundation in London to co-create a range of scenarios for Marine CoLABoration. The aim of the workshop was for participants to get to know each other as creative individuals and glimpse their shared vision(s) for the initiative. Consideration of the oceans inevitably surfaces many 'big' problems, which need multiple perspectives brought to bear to incite meaningful change. Thus the workshop explored the nature of value, economic and social assumptions which impact the significance and complexity of the issues involved. Scenarios were developed which explored more sustainable economic and governance systems as the world experiences continued effects of climate change.

We began by we looking at how Marine CoLAB could change the world - from individual, collective and global perspectives, today and in the future. When we looked into the previous world-changing experiences of the participants, we found that the group is keen to seize opportunities to reframe challenges and find ways to refresh whole systems. To be effective change-makers you told us you required appropriate capacities and a youthful, entrepreneurial spirit. Aside from your own qualities, you also need other people. World-changing happens through trusted collaborations and networks, and often with a strong social safety net. In the process of changing the world, you felt excited, inspired, rewarded, free and happy, but also exhausted and often frustrated.

We talked about what we know, presume and don’t know about valuing the oceans. It was apparent that there is a lot of knowledge about oceans in the group, but also some confusion about what 'valuing' oceans actually means and how it can contribute to healthier eco-systems. Rooted in the knowledge about the present, we probed what the emerging trends and weak signals might be, and questioned how valuing the oceans might evolve. Climate change and the growth economy emerged as he most important, but also most uncertain drivers of change for Marine CoLABoration.

Based on these two drivers, we created four scenarios and asked how Marine CoLAB would change the world in four quite different yet possible futures. What emerged were a few interesting directions, each of which involved changing the world through establishing or strengthening connections. Marine CoLab was creating links between the ocean and society, between governments and corporations, it was bridging the gaps between local and global governance of oceans, and working towards sustainable growth by integrating values with innovation. Even though these answers emerged from speculative scenarios set six to ten years in the future, any of them could become a Marine CoLAB initiative much sooner than that. Whether they will be taken up depends on your interests and experience.

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Further details can be found at workshop 201501

CGF's blogpost about the workshop: Think of a situation in which you felt able to change the world

The second workshop of the Marine CoLAB builds on ideas and suggestions that emerged during the first meeting in January. In the second workshop we looked at what the participants want to contribute to Marine CoLAB, which challenges and hypotheses are present in the group and which specific experiments can be designed to respond to these challenges.

The challenges and hypotheses that emerged from the participants current work and discussions during the workshop included systemic change and connecting disparate actions and experiments, public engagement with rules, valuing the cultural dimension of oceans, as well as the need to change perceptions of marine conservation in general and NGOs in particular. Based on these challenges, the participants designed five experiments that could be implemented on the short term (until July 2015), but can also form the basis of longer term investigations within Marine CoLAB.

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Notes can be found at workshop 201503

The third Marine CoLAB workshop had a twofold purpose: building on the themes and experiments from the previous workshops and deepening the connection with the participants’ organisational contexts and current work. While the first two workshops focused on individual personalities and talents, in the May workshop the participants introduced their professional contexts. This gave some indications about how existing work could contribute to Marine CoLAB and perhaps form new connections for (bilateral) collaborations and experiments. Participants continued their discussion around the three emerging themes of Systems Change, Changing Perceptions and Public Engagement. The discussion presented these themes as broad challenges for Marine CoLAB as a whole and looked at the relationship to the proposed (or new) experiments.

In the afternoon the group agreed on the experiments they will develop until the next workshop and settled on Plastic Pollution and Transparency of Marine Industries. Two of the experiments designed in March, Game On! and Gone Fishing in the Thames will continue to be developed but were not discussed further at the workshop. Before the designs were finalised, they were tested using a role playing exercise called a pre-enactment to challenge some of the participants’ assumptions from different points of view. The workshop ended with a design and planning session for the groups to clarify their implementation plans. Follow-up conversations are planned through conference calls, emails and wiki updates, aiming to have the first experimental results to present at the next workshop.

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Notes can be found at workshop 201505

The fourth workshop brought to an end the scoping phase of the Marine CoLAB. The experiments were concluded, providing insight and preliminary results that were shared in the group. There were two main purposes for the workshop: to clarify what has been learnt from the experiments and to introduce collbaorative processes to enable these (or similar) experiments to be used as a foundation for larger, longer term projects, using an iterative, experimental approach.

The progress and conclusions from three experiments were explored; Transparency of Marine Industries and blue divestment, Plastic pollution from a systems change perspective and Game On!. Two of the experiments were used to introduce techniques for scaling and extrapolation of the preliminary results. As the experiments became more concrete and the more clearly related to existing work, the participants felt it would be easier to commit time and resources to development. The workshop concluded with sessions to evaluate the outcomes of each experiment, the scoping workshops and the wider collaboration.

Notes can be found at workshop 201507

The main purpose of the Lisbon trip was to strengthen the sense of direction and shared values for the Marine CoLAB. There were several opportunities to extend the community by building connections with Portugese marine NGOs. Thursday (23/09) was dedicated to Marine CoLAB which was designed collaboratively on Wednesday (22/09). The first session in the lighthouse of Nazaré introduced the participants to the Portugese marine conservation context. Catarina Grillo welcomed Marine CoLAB and described the context within which the Gulbenkian Oceans initiative GOI operates. During a field trip to Peniche, the participants had a chance to hear and speak to people involved with GOI, namely SPEA (Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves), WWF Portugal and two researchers from the Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and NOVA School of Business and Economics (NOVA SBE). The trip ended with a visit to the Lisbon Oceanario, with a networking event with Portugese marine NGOs and a visit to the aquarium and their temporary exhibition Florestas Submersas by Takashi Amano.

Thursday (25/09) was dedicated to the Marine CoLAB session, held at the CGF headquarters in Lisbon. The morning started with the Marine CoLAB’s project incubator. The most developed Plastics experiment was discussed in detail, with sessions spilling into the afternoon in order to design the funding application to the Oak Foundation. Other initiatives, such as the Transparency of Marine Industries, Value Added Marine Conservation and Game On! were briefly touched upon, and plans were made to continue the discussions in the next Marine CoLAB workshop. Projects by individual participants and their organisations that are related to Marine CoLAB were listed (e.g. Marine Safe, River Academy, Beach watch, Ocean Optimism, Sustainable seafood coalition, etc.). Before the next workshop each participant committed to draft a brief note outlining the project, why it is relevant to Marine CoLAB and what it might need from Marine CoLAB.

The afternoon focused on the broader aspects of Marine CoLAB as a platform, a network of networks, melting pot or “Marine Innovation Exchange”, where the participants could inform, support, mentor and inspire each other, where their individual efforts could be amplified and scaled, where they would find time and space to (re)think collaboration. The workshop ended with planning and action points leading into the next session in November 2015 in London.

Notes can be found at workshop 20150923
Louisa Hooper on Lessons Learned from Marine CoLAB #5

• workshop 201511

The Marine CoLAB could develop in several directions; from temporary sessions held on cargo ships or icebreakers, to site specific work in marine parks, remote islands or mangroves. Further workshops, seminars, field trips or thematic working groups could all enhance the work that has been brought into focus with the initial workshops. Our current suggestions would include monthly or bi-monthly meetings (which could comprise smaller working groups or the wider community of interest) periodic in-depth thematic working retreats (several days), space for more ad-hoc temporary sessions based around emergent topics with presentations or sessions in existing forums.

• http://ecosystemcommons.org/
• http://marineecosystemservices.org

• Recommended Reading