The project provides an empirical assessment of the cognitive, technological, social and political processes that play a role in producing scientific marine knowledge. To that end, it investigates i) the structural dimensions of marine scientific knowledge production in relation to the North Atlantic, the Baltic See and the coastal and Amazon regions in Brazil as well as ii) the daily practices of inter- and transdisciplinary scientific collaboration within the project, while actively collaborating with local and international stakeholders. Under the header of ‘Open Ocean Science’ the project creates a concept for the structured engagement of diverse stakeholders in scientific agenda setting, and for scientific practices that address inequalities in terms of who has access to and who benefits from marine CO2 observations. Jointly, project partners and stakeholders develop targeted and specific recommendations for an ocean science that is transparent, accessible and relevant across multiple epistemic groups. In doing so, the project contributes to ‘an accessible ocean with open and equitable access to data’ as well as to ‘an inspiring and engaging ocean‘, as outcomes 6 and 7 of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

Conceptually, the project is rooted in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and sociology of knowledge, inspired by social constructivist and post-colonial studies on the regionally, thematically, and disciplinarily diverse manifestations and trans-regional interconnections of the global science system related to the ocean. Methodologically, it comprises quantitative and qualitative approaches (i.e. scientometric analyses on scientific budgets, agenda setting and publishing, interviews, participant observation, focus group discussions).