OCEANIS

Understanding and protecting life in the ocean requires collaboration across disciplines, sectors, and scales. From observations and data management to analysis, communication, and decision-making, effective ocean action depends on how well these efforts connect.

OCEANIS supports this collaboration by helping teams and partnerships take a shared, structured view of their work. It provides a common language and perspective for aligning priorities, strengthening coordination, and ensuring that ocean knowledge can better support societal needs.

OCEANIS is an operational framework for organising how ocean initiatives link knowledge generation to action. It identifies the key domains involved, from defining needs and collecting observations to managing data, producing usable outputs, communicating results, and evaluating impact. It shows how they interact within a single system.

Visualised as a Spiderweb of interconnected components, OCEANIS highlights that these components are interdependent rather than linear steps. This helps initiatives understand relationships, identify gaps, and strengthen the overall effectiveness of their work.

The framework can be applied to projects, programmes, observing systems, or partnerships at any stage, and is relevant for ocean observing, biodiversity initiatives, and other complex collaborative efforts.

The framework is developed within the Blueprint Living Lab, with training resources and facilitation approaches further advanced in the Learning Living Lab.

The OCEANIS Quick Start Guide translates the framework into a practical, facilitated workshop approach. It provides step-by-step guidance, prompts, and materials to help teams collaboratively map their activities, reflect on strengths and challenges, and identify priorities for improvement.

Designed for planning meetings, project development, programme reviews, or cross-sector dialogues, the guide helps groups build a shared understanding of how their work connects across the knowledge system, from observations to societal outcomes. It also highlights where coordination can be strengthened.

We invite you to try the Quick Start Guide with your team or network. Whether you are launching a new initiative or reviewing an existing one, it offers a structured way to spark discussion, align priorities, and turn insights into concrete next steps.

Download the guide and find associated resources here

There are many different ways to contribute to OCEANIS development. BioEcoOcean organises in-person, online and hybrid workshops. Additionally, various surveys ensure contributions from across marine environments, sectors, nations, and cultures.

This collaborative and iterative process ensures that OCEANIS can guide an integrated, transparent, responsive, and fit-for-need observing system. The BioEcoOcean focal living labs, with their research on ocean observing and modelling, will play a significant role in OCEANIS's development and testing.