To what extent has the One Ocean Hub achieved its initial objective of co-developing transformative research for sustainable development? And what have learnt, that can be of use to other researchers and change-makers, from our approach to fair research partnerships between Global North/South researchers and diverse knowledge holders, as illustrated in our Code of Practice?  

We have engaged in a process of self-reflection on these questions, as individuals and as a collective, on the occasion of our closing conference, held on May 20-24 in 2024, and we are now pleased to share the full report of the conference. We believe that this report can be of interest to other researchers, knowledge holders, UN agencies and change-makers. The report also informs the legacy work of the Hub and our future collaborations. 

The report charts our efforts (and innovative methodologies used to support these efforts) to understand (collectively and individually) our journey from 2018 to 2024 culminating in a rich academic-change-makers network that responds to multi-faceted ocean governance and human rights challenges. The report reflets on what it took to translate research and diverse sciences into policy and and what we learnt in making contributions to other implementation practices through research, innovation, co-production and fair partnerships. 

Innovative methodologies for self-reflection  

The report explains the intention for the closing conference to create a dedicated space to reflect and identify individual and collective learnings arising from the implementation of the Hub research objectives and programmes, and their evolution over six years. The report therefore explains how we developed the agenda for the closing conference, underscoring how important it is to design events in order to create a platform to document evidence of impact and transformation emerging from a wide network of researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, local knowledge holders, as well as NGO and UN partners. The report illustrates how we collected this evidence through dialogue, mapping, storytelling, reflections (collective and individual) and future modelling. 

In addition, the report includes reflections on the objectives of the closing conference to focus on:  

•what the Hub set out to do at the start of the project (i.e., in 2019), and to see how far the Hub had come by 2024 in shifting away from past patterns towards new ideas and ways of working;

•individual narratives, as well as reflecting on the Hub as “more than the sum of its parts”; 

•what was ‘hard’ in the duration of the project and what could be learnt from those experiences; and 

•the plurality and diversity of experiences (irrespective of how far along various Hub researchers were in their research process) and relations within/across disciplines, countries, and scales (local/international; past/present/future). 

Furthermore, the report narrates how the closing conference engaged researchers and partners in: reconnecting and remembering as Hub researchers; sharing and acknowledging achievements and challenges; having an embodied experience of arts-and theatre-based ocean work and that of the Hub; learning how and to what extent working with the Hub has been meaningful and useful/transformative for our partners; and developing new and future research agendas with co-researchers.  

Our lenses for self-reflection 

The report explains our reliance on transformation sciences and practices for envisioning the future, based on our ocean governance and human rights research, and broader lessons and learning relating to different areas of sustainable development through fair and equitable partnerships applicable in and across different contexts/sectors/scales. 

The report contains deep insights from researchers who had experienced profound personal transformation through their work in the Hub, which in turn had transformed their research practices and produced global impact. It also contains crucial lessons learnt from researchers who did not experience sufficient progress in working towards the transformative mandate of the Hub. All these understandings can serve other researchers beyond the One Ocean Hub network to start – and self-reflect on – their own journey of research co-development for transformation. And all these understandings continue to accompany us in our ongoing legacy journey. 

Photos: Clare Thomas