Forum of the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance
8-10 October 2024
From 8 to 10 October 2024, the Forum of the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA) in Ottawa, Canada. The annual forum brings together representatives from ministries, national research authorities and marine research organisations from countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Cape Verde, the EU, Iceland, Morocco, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. The purpose of this year's forum was to discuss possible priorities for future scientific cooperation.
Two priority "action areas" have currently been agreed:
Action area 1 | Coastal resilience:
It aims to improve understanding of the relationship between ocean and climate and develop results-based science to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, in particular to strengthen the resilience of coastal communities.
KDM has been commissioned by the European Commission to play a leading role in supporting the implementation of the "Coastal Resilience" action area.
Action area 2 | Ocean observation:
It aims to coordinate the observation of the Atlantic Ocean and improve modelling capacities, in particular for a better understanding of marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
The All-Atlantic Forum 2024 highlighted the successful cooperation and ongoing joint work, initiated new projects and promoted new partnerships in the Atlantic Basin, recognising the links between the Atlantic and the polar seas as particularly important. In the coming year, in addition to the areas of action mentioned above, the topics of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture as well as marine carbon storage will be addressed.
The inclusion of early career ocean professionals (ECOPs) was a highlight of the forum, including a workshop on "dialogue between the generations".
This year, KDM organised a workshop on coastal resilience as a contribution to the implementation of Action Area 1. The approximately 80 on-site participants and 15 online participants were invited to develop proposals on how the Alliance and its scientific and stakeholder communities can work together more effectively on coastal resilience issues around the Atlantic in both the short and medium term. The workshop was organised by Dr Alexandra-Sophie Roy and Jonathan Heimer (both KDM) organised and moderated the workshop. The results of the workshop were Dr Jan-Stefan Fritz (KDM) to the All-Atlantic Forum presented.
Based on the results of the workshop, the members of the Alliance stated in their final statement that they:
- would welcome the progress made on the coastal resilience strand, in particular the launch of the Coastal Resilience Knowledge Hubs; and
- encourage all members to participate in the activities of the Action Line and contribute their information to the Hub.
From KDM, the science was led by Professor Martin Zimmer (Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research, ZMT). In his keynote presentation, Prof Zimmer initiated a discussion on how the combination of the two approaches Ecosystem Co-Design and Collaborative Hubs The conference also emphasised the importance of the exchange of knowledge and experience, which could promote coastal resilience, and called for mutual capacity building and the exchange of young scientists, resources and infrastructure as well as experiences, successes and failures.
In the All-Atlantic Forum held Professor Antje Boetius (Alfred Wegener Institute, AWI) gave a keynote speech in which she spoke about the Antarctica INSYNC programme. Dr Nicole Biebow (AWI) in turn presented the further activities of the polar and marine research community in both polar regions.
At the level of young scientists, German institutions were represented by Dr Tony Cabus (Kiel University), Milena Ferreira and Nadim Katzer (ZMT), Viktoria Khokhlova (HafenCity University), Tristan (Wünnemann) da Silva e Ornelas (German ECOP Network).
The next forum is scheduled to take place in Brussels, Belgium, at the beginning of October 2025. It is expected to prioritise the promotion of young talent, coastal resilience and polar research.
