First, the project identifies existing barriers to effective marine governance and policy, and defines which enablers can be used to overcome such barriers.
Interview with Work Package 1 Lead Ellen Fobé
Interaction among actors:
Society-Science-Policy Interface
Task 1.1 examines the dynamics among the actors involved in marine policies with a focus on the Science-Policy-Society (SPS) interaction. This task builds on a systematic literature review on evidence-based and participatory policy-making; interactive research approaches (e.g. semi-structured interviews, focus groups and surveys) may be relied upon to add to the insights from literature.
The aim of the data collection process in Task 1.1 is to investigate the power imbalances in the decision-making process that hamper the development of evidence-based and societally supported policies on biodiversity conservation and the provision of ecosystem services to local communities. This will be achieved with attention to inequalities in the economic and ecological distribution to less favoured communities at different scales, and in international cooperation and development aid.
Particular attention will be directed to:
- the science-policy interface at the regional, national, EU and international level to create better evidence informed policy-making processes;
- and the benefits of traditional and indigenous knowledge and experience of biodiversity and ecosystem services with a view to a better integration in the policy-making process, in particular as regards the policy implementation stage.
Policy integration
Horizontal and Vertical Integration
Task 1.2 investigates the (in)coherence within and across policies with a focus on the Biodiversity-Water- Climate Nexus. It also addresses institutional barriers caused by inconsistencies between the different institutional layers involved in the marine multi-level governance.
Task 1.2 will conduct a systematic review of scientific literature and previous project reports and other key (e.g., EU and OECD) documents. The review will focus on biodiversity-water-climate policies relevant for land-sea management in Europe, key Multilateral Environmental Agreements and EU Directives (e.g., Nature Directives, Water Framework Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Marine Spatial Planning Directive).
Task 1.2 will identify and provide a synopsis of key institutional and socio-political barriers for policy integration (including those related to socio-economic inequalities, power dynamics, path dependencies, lock-ins, cultural inertia, SPS interfaces). Such barriers may all adversely affect the degree of integration/coherence in the formulation and implementation of these policies. The systematic review will also pay attention towards the identification of enablers and solutions for policy integration in the context of more effective marine governance. These are essential to remediate the aforementioned barriers.
Institutional change
Task 1.3 aims at understanding the most important obstacles and enablers of institutional change. It will also define opportunities (as strategies and actions) for bringing about institutional change.
Task 1.3 will draw on the existing (scientific and grey) literature on coastal and marine governance and related policies and the various policies that have already been introduced to deal with these issues.
The obstacles and enablers of institutional change will be analysed by reconstructing and analysing the governance paths that mark how these issues have been governed in the past decades at the level of the EU and in different governance contexts. Interviews with key experts will be used to fill in gaps and to check if interpretations of key events and factors are correct.
The Evolutionary Governance Theory will be the analytical framework used to structure the information, to analyse the various dependencies that shaped different governance paths, and to identify the factors that facilitated and delimited institutional change.
For each sustainability issue a timeline illustrating the governance path, key events and the most important factors influencing institutional change will be developed, paying attention to the diversity of governance contexts in different countries and their impact on the governance path.