OCEANS 2024 Singapore Ocean Decade initiative Panel: “Shifting Mindsets, Overcoming Barriers”

Amelia Ritger, Department of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Giulia De Masi, Research Program Manager and Visiting Faculty at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi

Photos courtesy: Hari Vishnu, Acoustic Research Laboratory, National University of Singapore

Various Ocean Decade Initiative activities are being conducted under the OES Ocean Decade Initiative Program.  Here is an introduction of the OES sponsored panel at OCEANS 2024 Singapore(https://singapore24.oceansconference.org).  If you are interested in the OES Ocean Decade Initiative Program, please visit the URL https://ieeeoes.org/oceandecade/ for more info.

 “The ocean plays a crucial role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the livelihoods of billions of people. We urgently need to change how we interact with it.” – United Nations Secretary General António Guterres

To achieve the ambitious goals of the United Nations Ocean Decade, we need to change not only how we interact with our ocean, but also how we interact with each other. The OCEANS 2024 Singapore panel “UN Ocean Decade: Shifting Mindsets, Overcoming Barriers” – organized by Francesco Maurelli (Assistant Professor at Constructor University in Bremen) on behalf of the OES Ocean Decade initiative committee – underscored the critical role of collaboration, behavioral change, and stakeholder empowerment in tackling the complex challenges facing our oceans.

The panel emphasized that by fostering collaboration across disciplines and leveraging insights from behavioral science, we can develop and implement more effective solutions that address global climate change and ensure a healthy ocean for future generations.

The panel was moderated by Francesco Maurelli and featured the following panelists:

• Rakoen Maertens, Junior Research Fellow at University of Oxford
• Aazani Mujahid, Associate Professor at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
• Filippo Campagnaro, Assistant Professor at Università degli Studi di Padova

The panel included both short presentations and an interactive component, with audience members providing responses to questions such as: “What can you identify as barriers to shifting mindsets in your field/project?”

The discussion unpacked the concept of “shifting mindsets” as a cornerstone for achieving the Ocean Decade goals. For example, we traditionally address problems from a technical perspective; however, the human element is woven into every step of project development, as we work on teams and with clients to develop successful solutions. By shifting our mindset to mindfully consider the human component in our work, we can better address the desires and needs of the human societies reliant upon a thriving ocean ecosystem.

The panel also explored methods for breaking down perceived barriers and highlighted how interdisciplinary collaboration, community engagement, and human-centered solutions are critical to tackling the complex challenges facing our oceans.

The power of collaboration

Filippo Campagnaro, co-founder of SubSeaPulse, showcased the power of a cross-disciplinary approach. He discussed the limitations of traditional data collection methods in ocean observations, which are often time-consuming, expensive, and require physical sampling in challenging environments. SubSeaPulse’s technology, born from collaborations with marine biologists and aquaculturists, offers a cost-effective and scalable solution through wireless, real-time sensor networks. Campagnaro’s work addresses several of the UN Ocean Decade challenges, including those related to ecosystem health assessment, building community resilience, and equitable access to data and technology, demonstrating the power of collaboration in tackling complex environmental issues.

 The importance of community engagement

Aazani Mujahid, a researcher from Universiti Malaysia, Sarawak, presented a compelling perspective that shifted the focus beyond science and engineering to identifying and addressing systemic issues.

Her work engages fishing communities, particularly women, who are often excluded from scientific research and decision-making processes. Mujahid identified several barriers to greater community involvement, including cultural barriers, funding limitations, lack of education and alternative livelihood options, and disinterest in and distrust of science.

She highlighted the importance of empowering women in these communities to make significant social, economic, and environmental change, especially within their own community. Mujahid’s work exemplifies the critical need to integrate social sciences and community engagement into ocean conservation efforts.

The science of human behavior

Rakoen Maertens, an applied behavioral scientist from the University of Oxford, highlighted how behavioral science can offer valuable insights into how to effectively shift mindsets and promote sustainable behaviors.

He began by describing the benefits of behavioral science and showing how behavioral science is critical to making impactful changes in the fields of ocean science and engineering.

He also introduced fundamental ideas in behavioral science that have been developed to explain how and why people make the decisions they do. For example, seemingly small changes, or “nudges,” have the power to significantly influence human behavior. To affect more complex behavior and generate long-term changes, however, we need effective interventions that bridge the “intention-behavior gap” where people have good intentions but lack motivation.

Maertens cited frameworks and tools like MINDSPACE, COM-B, and BASIC that have been developed to design interventions that identify and target behaviors. He pointed out some resources that the audience could read to tap into the power of behavioral science (e.g.,https://www.busara.global/our-works/the-busara-toolkit-groundwork/,https://www.bi.team/publications/mindspace/).  Maertens concluded by emphasizing the need for proactive integration of behavioral science into projects, but cautioned against a one-size-fits-all application across different cultures.

Closing thoughts

At the start of the session, the moderator, Francesco Maurelli, asked the audience to identify perceived barriers to shifting mindsets. Maertens built upon this at the end of the discussion by asking the audience to identify enablers to shifting mindsets and consider their own actions, asking: “What are YOU going to do (concretely) with the insights from this panel?”

Audience participation during this exciting session not only informed the discussion, but it also solidified the session’s call to action, encouraging audience members to translate knowledge into an interdisciplinary and collective effort towards sustainable ocean science, engineering, and conservation.

Overall, the session shed light on the importance of changing mindsets and provided attendees with tools and approaches for achieving positive community change during the ongoing Ocean Decade.