Transforming the way we think about the marine space, the Mistra Co-Creating Better Blue (C2B2) research programme aims to deliver change within the sustainable blue economy
As countries increasingly turn their attention to the sea for diversifying their economies and ensuring the critical provision of services, there is an urgent need to radically change the way we think and use the ocean, away from a blue growth-based approach and towards a sustainable blue economy.
This is particularly urgent in Sweden where our relationship with and dependency on the ocean have changed dramatically during living memory. It requires no less than a transformation in the way we think about the marine space and the activities increasingly deployed in our seas, and an assessment for how multiple goals can be realized more effectively and sustainably.
Stakeholder collaboration and science-based ecosystem governance
Such an assessment requires in turn bringing different actors and agendas together in a constructive dialogue. As a larger part of society has an ever-increasing stake in the ocean, it is imperative that we develop new forms of stakeholder collaboration combined with science-based ecosystem governance practices.
The research programme Mistra Co-Creating Better Blue (C2B2) envisions a more sustainable, open and democratic, multi-sector and multi-actor blue economy and sustainable society.
C2B2 aims to bring about transformative change through participatory governance supported by relevant and insightful data and knowledge by re-imagining the role of quintuple helix actors across the blue economy in Sweden in processes ‘from data to knowledge to decisions and action’.
Delivering a ‘co-created better blue’
The programme has been specifically designed to deliver a ‘co-created better blue’ which – by its very design – consists of highly developed collaboration with the users of the research results, namely the diverse set of stakeholders involved in multi-level participatory ocean governance.
Three distinct pathways will ensure successful achievement of the C2B2 outcomes and impacts:
- Data
- People
- Systems
Central to the C2B2 approach is the LivingLabs co-creation methodology, applied to the development of three demonstration cases to trigger transformative changes towards participatory ocean governance, involving relevant sectors and actors in Sweden’s three marine basins.
C2B2 brings together 12 partners from academia and research organisations, 25 co-funding associated partners from industry and public sector, as well as stakeholders from civil society, and will actively recruit more actors to join during the programme period.
The overall C2B2 approach provides a major advance beyond the current State of Art by:
- Going beyond a single-sector approach;
- Implementing the quintuple helix concept at a practical level by using data to ‘give nature a voice’;
- Extending the LivingLabs co-creation methodology to the complex setting of the sustainable blue economy;
- Practicing responsible Action Research by initiating and developing these co-creation processes and embedding them as routines for participatory governance, to ensure the adoption of collaborative and adaptive management practices beyond the C2B2 programme lifetime; and
- Establishing a continuously evolving knowledge system for science-based ecosystem governance.
The extensive demonstration and validation of this approach in C2B2 means this can also be replicated elsewhere in Sweden and internationally.
