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Working Groups

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The Center for Ocean Solutions believes that convening the best minds across multiple disciplines is key to creating solutions. Our working groups bring such minds together to discuss big ocean problems and craft implementable strategies. Interdisciplinary, multi-institutional working groups were a primary mechanism COS employed early on, to bridge gaps between knowledge and action on pressing threats to the ocean. From 2011-2015, we led five working groups on the following topics: climate change and coral reefs, climate change and pelagic predators, dynamic ocean management, hypoxia in the California Current and resilience of small-scale fisheries. Each of these groups involved sustained engagement of renowned scientists, policy experts, and management practitioners from Stanford as well as local and international academic, government and non-government organizations. Through multiple workshops over 1-2 years, each working group fostered new collaborations at the science-policy interface and advanced the field of understanding towards actionable solutions. The range of products and outcomes resulting from these working groups includes: peer-reviewed publications, policy relevant findings, a consensus statement signed by thousands of coral experts, and novel management tools.