The Ocean Data Action Coalition

HUB Ocean and Microsoft are leading the Ocean Data Action Coalition. The vision is a globally shared data revolution that will contribute to sustainable ocean management worldwide. 

Building a sustainable ocean economy is one of the most important tasks and greatest opportunities of our time. Data liberated, safeguarded, and made available by the Ocean Data Action Coalition is essential in realizing all the priority actions outlined by the heads of state in The High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel). This will only be realized if the private sector, governments and researchers join forces.

Background

The Ocean Data Action Coalition is an initiative from The High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel), which consists of 17 countries. Together, the members control nearly 40 per cent of the world’s coastlines and 30 per cent of the world’s exclusive economic zones (EEZs). The Ocean Panel’s goal is to build momentum towards the management of 100 per cent of the ocean, ensuring the health and wealth of our ocean for future generations. 

Therefore, the Ocean Panel has put forward ambitious plans and initiatives to protect our ocean. Among these is the establishment of the Ocean Data Action Coalition (ODAC).

In December 2020, HUB Ocean (then C4IR Ocean) responded to the call from the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy to take on the leadership of the ODAC, in collaboration with Microsoft Corporation.

Challenges

To make the Ocean Panel’s vision a reality, we will strive to:

1.      Break down the technological and human barriers to ocean data sharing

Despite broad intentions to share ocean data, much data remains locked away in silos - sitting on computers, in national ocean data centres, and in publicly available but difficult-to-access online data repositories.

2.      Develop business models that promote the unlocking of ocean data

To date, a vast majority of ocean data collection has been funded and managed by public sources.  To make these data widely available, best practices for open data sharing have evolved. While the success of the open data movement is undeniable, so too is the fact that a tremendous amount of data is not open and much remains not easily accessible. 

3.      Break down the regulatory and policy barriers to ocean data sharing

Frequently, data sharing is inhibited or prohibited by governance, regulation, and policies. Similarly, many new and existing regulations and policies regarding ocean management require ocean data but do not mandate or incentivize such sharing.

Status

In 2021, ODAC hosted two executive round table events with participation from over 30 major international ocean businesses. Discussions centered around topics of trust, governance, traceability, and creating value in data sharing with participants identifying specific challenges. ODAC is now working to develop specific activities with companies to overcome these challenges. In parallel, ODAC will now encourage companies to make real commitments to ocean data sharing.