One Ocean Summit: the contribution of Perrine, an ENSTA Bretagne PhD student

One Ocean Summit University 

Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, Ambassador for the Poles and Maritime Affairs, who was in charge of organizing One Ocean Summit, wanted to get young researchers involved with a view to contributing to the talks on the summit’s varied agenda. This is how the One Ocean Summit University initiative (led by UBO) came about and took shape over one month, bringing together a community of young international researchers (doctoral and post-doctoral students, etc.) from across the marine science spectrum: economics, finance, law of the sea, European law, ecology, biology, physical oceanography, hydrography, data science, etc. Perrine Bauchot, a PhD student at ENSTA Bretagne, was selected to take part.

The aim was to pool the expertise of each young researcher so as to present a common vision of the key issues shaping research and training in research against the backdrop of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. 

Together, we considered practical recommendations for addressing the concerns discussed during the summit.

At the summit, the students presented their recommendations using an interactive poster. The group’s 18 spokespeople took part in pairs in the different workshops with a view to defending their ideas. These workshops touched on a variety of themes, including governance, protection of the oceans, education, scientific research, blue finance and tourism.

I took part in the workshop "The Science we need for the Ocean we want", where the panel was mostly made up of scientists, but there were also some politicians. I asked about what skills need to be developed and investments encouraged for future Ocean data scientists. This question particularly tied in with the "Digital Twin" of the Ocean project, one of the summit’s headline announcements.

"On the last day, we were able to attend the high-level segment and therefore note all of the official pledges made by the Heads of State regarding conservation of biodiversity, plastic pollution, scientific research, etc. That evening, we went to Océanopolis to talk about our experience and the commitments made during One Ocean Summit."

Talks are set to continue

The young researchers are going to continue working on these recommendations over the coming months to summarize their lines of thinking, while taking on board the measures adopted at One Ocean Summit in Brest. 

During this experience, I was able to gauge the power relations that link the scientific and political communities. Scientists still have a hard time making their voices heard. That said, thanks to the multidisciplinary approach adopted during this summit, we were able to more clearly define the real challenges facing the ocean and thus come up with more credible recommendations.

Their next event is the UN Ocean Conference scheduled to take place in Lisbon from June 27 to July 1, 2022. The group intends to present the fruit of their collective labor there.