JAKFISH: Judgement and Knowledge in Fisheries including Stakeholders

The project will investigate how different actors in the marine sector, including fisheries, make use of scientific knowledge, how the roles that scientists play help formulate policies and how governance approaches can be developed which enable policy decisions to address uncertainty and complexity based on research and with the participation of stakeholders. The project will collect and build on experiences from a diverse range of EU policy areas which address interactions between human activities and nature. The main objectives of the proposal are to examine and develop the institutions, practices and tools that allow complexity and uncertainty to be dealt with effectively within participatory decision making processes. The proposal will develop these institutions, practices and tools in respect to European marine management with a particular focus on fish harvesting and marine spatial planning via two linked strategies. Where Strategy One is to develop tools to facilitate participatory decision making processes based on recently developed bio-economic modeling techniques. While Strategy Two carries out a sociological analysis of the practices and institutional forms that can most effectively involve the wider community in debates over developing science-based policies.

Coordinator: CEFAS, UK