Marine social sciences : looking towards a sustainable future

Marine and coastal environments provide extensive and essential ecosystem services upon which much of humanityrelies, yet the incorporation of human dimensions into marine and coastal policy and management has historicallybeen lacking. As efforts to address the substantial and diverse challenges facing marine and coastal environmentscontinue, recent years have seen a growing call for greater consideration of people, how they interact with the marineenvironment, and the resultant implications for developing effective policy and management. Indeed, in recent timesrecognition of the importance of marine social science research, data, evidence and expertise has undergone anupward trajectory. Despite this growing level of awareness of the value of social science to the wider marine andcoastal management agenda, effective and meaningful inclusion of marine social science into research and practicehas remained a challenge. Here we approach this global challenge as an opportunity to bring the community togetherto set a forward-looking international research agenda, recognising the role of multiple approaches and diversemethods understanding the relationship between society and the sea, galvanising the research and practicecommunity across marine social sciences and beyond. Furthermore, by bringing together this increasingly activecommunity, we can identify mechanisms of change and pathways to enable inclusion of marine social sciences withinglobal ocean policy. This paper draws on the views of researchers and practitioners from across the marine socialscience disciplines, brought together through an expert workshop held at the MARE 2019 conference (June 2019) andrepresenting a range of geographical regions and perspectives. Through the workshop, delegates identified a numberof priorities for the ongoing development of the marine social science community, including the need to improvecapacity for marine social science research globally, the importance of nurturing an inclusive and equitable marinesocial science research community and the role of networks to continue to raise the profile of marine social sciencedata and evidence for global ocean policy and management. Additionally, the discussions provided valuable insightinto existing knowledge gaps and potential research priorities for the future. Finally, the paper presents a future visionand recommendations for an international and interdisciplinary marine social science agenda, calling for collaborativeand strategic thinking on marine social sciences from across the marine science and policy interface. Critically, weshow how social science needs to be embedded in all aspects of marine and coastal management in order to createtruly sustainable solutions to the pervasive environmental challenges we face