UiB’s SEAS programme gets Ocean Decade status

Shaping European Research Leaders for Marine Sustainability (SEAS) is a ground-breaking postdoctoral fellowship programme at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway, with 37 postdoctoral fellows across disciplines at the university’s seven faculties.

Providing financial support to the Ocean Decade

SEAS has now been endorsed as an official Ocean Decade Action as part of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030), becoming the second such Action at UiB.

“This endorsement is a great honour and fits right into the work we do with our local partners as part of One Ocean City Bergen, our European partners to establish a Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) on water, and our global position as the SDG14 Hub Chair for United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI),” says Rector Margareth Hagen at the University of Bergen.

The SEAS programme is a major economic contribution to the UN Ocean Decade with a total budget of NOK 160 million (approximately 14 million Euros). This funding comes from the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme (see FACTS for more details) and from the university itself through a collaboration across the university’s faculties, departments and institutes.

“SEAS is very much a joint effort across the university and underlines our commitment to meeting the challenges of the future by providing interdisciplinary solutions for the ocean and ocean science of the future. The endorsement from the Ocean Decade is an inspiration for us to continue this work both in our research and transforming our education,” says UiB’s Vice Dean for Ocean Øyvind Fiksen.

Building on previous Ocean Decade success

The first Action from UiB to be endorsed was the innovative Norway-Pacific Ocean-Climate Scholarship Programme (N-POC), comprising of more than 20 PhD candidates from Pacific island countries in a unique joint PhD degree between UiB and long-time partner institution the University of the South Pacific. N-POC became an Ocean Decade Action on World Ocean Day in June 2021, when the very first round of Actions were announced.

“I am truly pleased to see this endorsement of SEAS as an Ocean Decade Action. The combined efforts of our university’s two Decade Actions, of which one is at PhD level and another at postdoctoral level, will surely enhance the University of Bergen’s profile as a powerful supporter of early career development for ocean scientists, globally and across many disciplines,” says Professor Edvard Hviding from UiB’s Department of Social Anthropology, who came up with the original idea for N-POC.

One of the 37 postdoctoral fellows in the SEAS project is Aistė Klimašauskaitė from UiB’s Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities. As well as engaging in research on deep-sea mining, her SEAS project has taken on a meta dimension of keeping an overview and assessing the SEAS programme itself. She thus knows more about the SEAS programme than most.

“The Ocean Decade depends on resilient and collegial research communities that nurture support among colleagues. SEAS is a community before it is a programme. This is one common thing that SEAS fellows mention, and this is something many of us experienced. As I see it, this is the main contribution to the Ocean Decade and therefore not just an Action, but, perhaps, the Action,” says Klimašauskaitė about the recent status as Ocean Decade Action bestowed upon herself and the other SEAS fellows.

• Read interviews with a selection of the SEAS fellows here.