SEAS fellows join the UiB delegation at UNOC3
SEAS fellows Chloe Game and Mònica Pons Hernández attended the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC3) in Nice 9-13 June, both giving lectures and taking part in panels. “The conference provided a rare and powerful space to transcend academic discourse and engage science directly with policy frameworks, diplomatic processes, and diverse perspectives,” SEAS fellow Mònica Pons Hernández says.
Hovedinnhold
Our position as an endorsed action makes the UN Ocean Conference an important arena for our outreach. SEAS
The UiB delegation were not the only ones attending from Bergen. The three-masted barque Statsraad Lehmkuhl had also anchored up at the Port of Nice, providing a great location for the first event of the SEAS fellows program: "One Sustainable and Equitable Ocean", with Chloe Game as one of the speakers during the opening weekend of the conference.
|Below: The Statsraad Lehmkuhl arrived in Nice as part of her 2025-2026 One Ocean Expedition - seen here arriving in her home port of Bergen for One Ocean Week, 2023, after the first One Ocean Expedition|
"UNOC3 was a big shift from my usual scientific meetings – a hectic but insightful few days at the science-policy interface, fostering both new and old connections," Chloe Game says.
Engaging a broader audience
"One of the highlights was being invited to speak aboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl during the session “Knowledge Sharing: ECOPs and Science Diplomacy in the Ocean Decade.” I discussed the importance—and difficulty—of interdisciplinary research for tackling ocean challenges, using examples from my own work as part of the SEAS programme. It was great to engage with a broader audience, including artists, which encouraged me to further expand my thinking around interdisciplinarity and how we might engage with this even more in the SEAS programme," Chloe continues.
|Below: SEAS fellow Chloe Game presenting onboard Bergen's very own Statsraad Lehmkuhl at UNOC3 in Nice, France.|
Chloe also attended a strategic workshop focused on Atlantic cooperation for deep-sea biodiversity research, under the Challenger 150 initiative.
"This brought together stakeholders from countries across the Americas, Africa and Europe to discuss the urgent need for high-resolution mapping of vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), data standardisation, and better integration of AI. A key concern raised was the data disparity between the global north and south, and how most of our knowledge is from top 1% of the ocean, despite the vast majority being deep sea. As Professor Kerry Howell, of Plymouth Marine Laboratory & The University of Plymouth (UK), aptly said: “For sustainable ocean management, we just need to know where they are - it really is that simple”."
"Given my SEAS research to improve the mapping of VME’s with machine learning, I left these events feeling grounded in my research in SEAS and grateful to be contributing applied, actionable insights in marine sustainability." Chloe Game.
Shared urgency to find effective solutions
SEAS fellow Mònica Pons Hernández was a panellist at UNOC3 in the session "Navigating Common Waters: Ocean Science Diplomacy for a Sustainable Common Future".
"The side event, organised by the University of Bergen and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Oceânicas – INPO, brought together scientists, policymakers, diplomats, and civil society representatives to explore how ocean science can contribute meaningfully to inclusive and sustainable ocean governance. The conversations were rooted in collaboration, mutual learning, inclusivity, and a shared urgency to find effective solutions for protecting our ocean," Mònica Pons Hernández says.
|Below: Mònica Pons Hernández takes part in a panel debate at UNOC3|
"Before attending, I was honestly sceptical about the potential of UNOC as a transformative platform. But this event, the only one dedicated to ocean science diplomacy during the convention, changed that perspective," Mònica acknowledges.
"Being part of this dialogue was not just meaningful—it was a reminder of how vital inclusive, science-informed policymaking is to secure the ocean’s future." Mònica Pons Hernández.
"The event provided a rare and powerful space to transcend academic discourse and engage science directly with policy frameworks, diplomatic processes, and diverse perspectives. I was deeply humbled to have a voice in the room; one filled with people genuinely committed to a better future for our ocean. I spoke on the importance of gender and intergenerational inclusivity in ocean governance, while also advocating for the recognition of interspecies democracy as essential to achieving SDG 14 'Life Below Water'."
Next generation research leaders
The activities of the UiB delegation were coordinated by Senior Adviser Sverre Ole Drønen from the Division of Research and Innovation, who has worked closely on the ocean-science-policy nexus with researchers from both UiB and partner institutions since the first UNOC in June 2017 and also has a lead role for UiB in the work as the UNAI SDG 14 Hub Chair.
“The big shift in the UiB delegation this time was the fact that we brought younger researcher than on the two previous conferences. Not to speak of the fact that all UiB scientists at UNOC3 were women. This is a rarity in ocean science and a strong signal at a time when diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are under threat,” says Drønen before elaborating.
“I was impressed by the contributions by both Chloe and Mònica from the SEAS programme as well as all our researchers, both the next generation of ocean research leaders and the more veteran researchers who represented UiB in Nice.
He believes that great momentum has been created by the activities at UNOC3, not the least in the emerging field of Ocean Science Diplomacy, where he hopes to see the establishment of a global structure to facilitate this. He has great hopes that this will happen with UiB and SEAS representatives in key roles.