The Ad Hoc IMBeR Review Panel co-chaired by Stefano Aliani on behalf of SCOR and Anna Zivian on behalf of Future Earth have completed the review of IMBeR’s major achievements in the last five years, and their plans for the next phase. This review document has now been approved by Future Earth and by the SCOR Executive Committee.
To recall on the process, the review panel was recruited and appointed in January-February 2021, they agreed on the content of the IMBeR progress report and on the timeline and informed IMBeR leadership who prepared a synthesis report. This IMBeR report was reviewed by the panel who drafted a review report and gave IMBeR the opportunity to comment or clarify any factual errors.The IMBeR feedback was incorporated in the final version of the report along with the final recommendations and this report has now been revised and approved by the SCOR Executive Committee and Future Earth.
After receiving the review report and this communication from the SCOR Executive and Future Earth, IMBeR has until the 23rd of December to respond to SCOR and Future Earth on how the recommendations will be addressed.
2. The online survey questions (Appendix 1)
3. The results of the global survey (without China) (Appendix 2)
4. The results of the China survey (Appendix 3)
5. The report submitted by IMBeR at the request of the review panel (Appendix 4)
(Suggestions to address recommendation in orange)
Recommendation 1 – SCIENTIFIC QUALITY (p.8)
An impressive number of papers have been published under the IMBeR umbrella and the increasing trend over time is evident from the report. The topic of most of these papers will contribute usefully to SCOR and Future Earth’s missions as well as to UN Decade goals (Fig 2). The number of papers in specialized journals reflect scientific contributions, and its overall research outputs are strong and high-profile. Top ranked journals are certainly one of the best tools to achieve these aims and remain the basic tool to disseminate science. IMBeR is encouraged to continue to focus on top quality papers. However, a tentative assessment of how these scientific papers impacted policy, action, and people’s lives may be the topic of future dedicated papers. Broadening our understanding of “impact” could be an excellent future contribution from IMBeR.
Priority: Essential. Already planned by IMBeR: Yes
Recommendation 2 – OUTREACH / SOCIETAL IMPACT (p.9)
By drawing on IMBeR's membership (particularly the human dimensions group) and devoting extra effort, IMBeR can develop protocols to detect, document, measure, and report on how IMBeR information is influencing society beyond the influence of publications discussed above. The protocols themselves could become part of the IMBeR legacy for future programs. To enrich the development of alternative scenarios to bridge the gap among ecology, conservation, physical climate sciences, social sciences, and humanities, we encourage IMBeR to link with other, shorter-time-scale international projects that are case-study-based and that delve into local/regional studies and models, and putting these into global (including modelling) contexts (e.g., the One Ocean Hub UKRI project, the H2020 TRIATLAS, MISSION ATLANTIC, iATLANTIC, among others).
There are also several new disciplinary research areas that are emerging, such as Ecosystem Accounting as a means of quantifying non-monetary value in ecosystems, which might be useful avenues for IMBeR to consider. That brings us to the future, which is far more important than past delivery. The view of the Review Panel is that if IMBeR decides to move from a ‘very strong’ program to an ‘exceptional’ program, even more needs to happen. If IMBeR’s SSC feels that changing our thinking about the research environment is a top priority, then how is this best done?
Priority: Important. Already planned by IMBeR: Partly
Recommendation 3 – OUTREACH / SOCIETAL IMPACT (p.10)
The Review Panel suggests the SSC should further develop plans to increased impact and development of new ideas. The above recommendations and improved synthesis among the working groups and with the SSC can also ensure that the programs achieve more than just the sum of their parts. This will be especially important for the Innovation Challenges, which can be models of transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge.
Priority: Important. Already planned by IMBeR: Partly
Recommendation 4 – CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT / TRAINING (p.10)
IMBeR’s capacity development and training are real strengths of the program and should continue to be a focal point. Indeed, it could be useful to create a document or video capturing IMBeR’s learnings and sharing good practices. Online training, which has become more important with the pandemic and concerns about the contribution of global travel to climate change, will remain relevant into the future, and we recommend putting additional effort into using and developing online resources for training and professional development.
Priority: Very Important. Already planned by IMBeR: No
Recommendation 5 – RESOURCING AND SUPPORT OF THE IPOS (p.11)
This brief accounting cannot be a perfect indication of IMBeR activities and it does not give complete insight into IMBeR’s priorities. However, some important information can be drawn from how IMBeR’s resources are allocated. Apart from structural funds dedicated to salaries and offices, most funding has been dedicated to student and ECR travel. Funds dedicated to travel and visits (both short- and longer-term) for mid-level and senior scientists are not reported and may be useful to enhance and disseminate top quality science. It is good to see the level of support from hosts for the IPOs, and it is critical that this support is continued to ensure IMBeR’s success. IMBeR’s value to the host institutions needs to be highlighted to maintain ongoing funding support. To that end, an analysis of the wide range of benefits to the hosts should be undertaken.
Priority: Important. Already planned by IMBeR: No
Recommendation 6 – RESULTS OF ONLINE SURVEY (p.12-13)
IMBeR has excellent potential for facilitating research networking, but clearer operational procedures and membership expectations for regional programs and working groups would be helpful. Coordination between the SSC, WGs, and RPs can be improved. A highlight from the survey responses was the summer schools and conferences, which respondents felt were very well run, welcoming, and helpful for providing mentoring and professional development. Signons to diversity and inclusion-related charters/statements in online replies suggest a lack of diversity in meeting participation. Earmarked allocations to ensure diversity and inclusion for IMBeR activities and dedicated support for underrepresented groups (e.g., funding, training opportunities) would help. Additional virtual opportunities for participation (both synchronous and asynchronous) could also make participation more feasible for underrepresented groups by reducing expenses and obviating the need for travel; however, care should be given to ensuring that participation from areas with limited bandwidth or internet access are not left out.
Priority: Important. Already planned by IMBeR: No
Suggestions:
Inclusion of under-represented groups - policy for tailoring presentations to accommodate colourblind, deaf, and blind, participants as well as participants with first languages other than English
Inclusion of different time-zones - make recordings of presentations available.
Inclusion of those who cannot travel - stream presentations live
Accommodate low bandwidth - use lowest bandwidth platforms. Allow videos to be streamed at quality suitable for bandwith (Youtube does this automatically)
Recommendation (unnumbered) – GRAND CHALLENGES (p.13-14)
Regarding the Grand Challenges, the importance of knowledge co-production is noted in the future plans. This should explicitly include both co-design and co-production with Indigenous peoples, which is often not considered in research projects. This is critical to successful co-production for governance solutions.
The future plans are well-grounded on past progress, and aligning future work strategically with the UN Decade of Ocean Science makes good sense. Specifically with regard to GCIII, however, point 7 (“Support and advance sustainable, equitable and inclusive governance approaches to ocean climate adaptation and mitigation”) was found to be somewhat abstract in its focus and prone to use of terms with somewhat different focal areas (climate adaptation, adaptive ocean governance, global governance, etc.). Some more targeted or concrete language here could be useful.
By contrast, points 8 and 9 have a somewhat more targeted focus. Furthermore, the remaining knowledge gaps for GCIII do not all clearly emerge in the three GCIII objectives and there may be merit in a more bounded articulation of activities to which the IMBeR community is strategically capable of adding value across all GC’s.
Regarding GCIII, adaptation governance is a crowded space perhaps and the measures of success in section 3.5 do not necessarily add clarity as to what the central contributions might be. The Review Panel noted that objectives for future research are potentially ‘siloed’ in the GC’s, but putting in clear expectations that the new innovation challenge projects be truly co-developed or co-produced is a unique opportunity for IMBeR. Some clear guidance on what that means for the IMBeR community – and for partners – might itself be a helpful initiative.
Suggestions:
Recommendation (unnumbered) – Innovation challenges (p.14)
IMBeR is on an important journey moving towards interdisciplinary research. As a whole, the program is increasingly interdisciplinary, but to continue this journey as noted in the report there remains a need for increased interdisciplinarity, and particularly, integration of social science and indigenous knowledge at the project level to achieve true interdisciplinary research. This needs to be embedded in the development of the new innovation challenges. These innovation challenges still to be developed are going to be important flagship projects for IMBeR and ones where IMBeR can have the most impact as a program. We suggest that a set of criteria be developed for testing ideas and proposals against.
Suggestions:
Recommendation (unnumbered) – Regional Programmes and Working Groups (p.14)
The regional programs and working groups appear to be working mostly independently. We suggest that coordination meetings, synthesis, and other activities be planned to ensure that these projects achieve more than the sum of the parts is achieved. There has already been excellent engagement and impetus in capturing cumulative impacts of climate-non-climate drivers within IMBeR (e.g., involvement in Fish-MIP - Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project), but in addition, we would encourage IMBeR to reach out and link with shorter-time-scale, international projects that are embarking on Integrated Ecosystem Assessments (for example the H2020 Mission Atlantic Project).
Linkages with projects/teams undertaking Integrated Ecosystem Assessments in particular case studies would be hugely beneficial here. Further, global scale efforts could be enhanced by solidifying links with regional programs that are tackling climate vulnerability studies at smaller spatial scales.
Suggestions:
Recommendation (unnumbered) – Endorsement of Projects (p.15)
There is no ex-post evaluation of the benefits for the [endorsed] project or IMBeR, even when progress reports are solicited to the projects. It seems that there are two opposite strategies regarding endorsement: the first is to use it simply as a communication channel with other topical or regional groups, in which case the ideal would be to maximize the number of endorsements and reduce the level of requirements. The second (which is suggested through the SPIS) is to consider endorsed projects as part of the IMBeR research muscle. If so, a formal report that goes beyond the procedure and documents the impacts of endorsement may prove key for future reviews of the program and to inform the different decision-making committees within the IMBeR governance structure.
Therefore, an evaluation of the endorsed project process and how this is adding value to both the projects and IMBeR should be undertaken to consider improvements or possible termination.
The Science Strategy group should use its synthesis of IMBeR’s activities over the past five years to guide the work required for the next project phase (from now until 2025). This plan can then assist in attracting funding for these new or continued activities.
Suggestions:
Recommendation (unnumbered) – Internal governance and evaluation of impact (p.15-16)
IMBeR internal organization is relatively complex: a scientific steering committee of between 12 and 18 official members (plus ex-officio), a subgroup for executive decisions, four regional programs, four working groups, an early career scientists' network, subgroups on science and financial strategies, two international project offices, and 36 national contacts. From these, we suggest rethinking the role, composition, involvement level, and rotation rules of the national contacts. IMBeR may also find it helpful to take advantage of the ECS network and create links between established researchers and ECSs in each country. This could help bridge regional research groups and propel a more intense country-level communication of IMBeR related issues (events, news, calls). The SSC must also consider what happens post 2025 when SCOR proposes to terminate its funding. While the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 16 (2021-2030) program could be an excellent platform going forward, by itself it cannot guarantee the flow of funding towards IMBeR.
IMBeR has already engaged with the Ocean Decade and has noted that it “...plans to deliver at least one ‘Decade Action’ per year through IMBeR events which have been endorsed by the Decade – these include ClimEco summer schools, West Pacific Workshop and Symposia, IMBeR Open Science Conference, and IMBIZO conferences.” This is a good, solid start, but a dedicated “think tank” (or a series of them as the Decade of Ocean Science unfolds) would help refine and structure IMBeR’s inputs to and involvement in the Ocean Decade so that a concerted and coordinated contribution is facilitated. The earlier recommendations to improve coordination of different IMBeR projects and working groups can also help increase the impact of IMBeR’s contribution to the Decade.
Suggestions:
Recommendation 7 – UN DECADE OF OCEAN SCIENCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT (p.16)
To devote special creative thought (a dedicated “think tank”) to using the Ocean Decade to support, motivate, initiate and showcase activities within IMBeR. This collective thinking could be internal to IMBeR or in collaboration with other programs, and it would help refine and structure IMBeR’s inputs to and involvement in the Ocean Decade so that a concerted and coordinated contribution is facilitated.
In addition, securing closer ties with the new initiatives of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) would be an effective way of strengthening IMBeR’s inputs/contributions to and impacts on the Ocean Decade and its multitude of envisaged activities. Similar engagement with other UN contributions to the Decade could also be useful.
Suggestions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AoJ4iniyNytd7JFlTSOAdV6eZlkQ1M8mEGpuO3RMNYQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cqv7TBHsCLgAjfo4douvltiBDL8GKU4ttHBPm8eq4Z4/edit?usp=sharing