Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area Research Coordination Network Inaugural Meeting

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Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area Research Coordination Network Inaugural Meeting

Location and dates:  Boulder, Colorado, June 3-6, 2025 (1500-2300 UTC)

Attendance and Registration: virtual & in person; please register HERE by 18 April 2025

Project Goals:  Our ultimate goal, using the Ross Sea region MPA (RSrMPA) as a model system, is to create an international coordinated network to support research and monitoring aligned with science-policy integration. Towards this goal, we are bringing the international community together to engage and integrate efforts on science, policy, and community partnerships in support of RSrMPA research and monitoring. Although our current funding structure does not provide financial support for actual research and monitoring, the network itself will provide better coordination, better leveraging, and new opportunities to expand on such efforts. (For additional Project Information see our website and our NSF award info.)

Meeting Goals:

• Bring the international community together to initiate the RSrMPA network and to identify and link ongoing efforts in support of RSrMPA research and monitoring;
• Identify and discuss priorities for science-policy integration in support of the upcoming 2027 RSrMPA review;
• Identify participants, management structure, and priorities for each of the five interconnected network components: policy engagement; community partner engagement; observations and process studies; data science; and biophysical modeling; and
• Draft a summary report of meeting outcomes for broad distribution that summarizes strategies, priorities, and initiated activities of the newly formed RSrMPA network to both solicit and update ongoing involvement. 

A draft of the Meeting Agenda can be found here.

Early Career* Researchers: A limited number of travel fellowships are available. Please apply here by 11 April 2025. (*Early Career includes any PhD students or those within 5 years of finishing their PhD).

We invite you to share our website (http://www.rosssearesearch.org/) and this email widely, and please feel free to invite others to join and follow this effort.

Please email cassandra.brooks@colorado.edu if you have any questions or any trouble registering,

Sent on behalf of: Cassandra Brooks, Lead Principal Investigator, along with RCN Steering Committee Members Sharon Stammerjohn, Steve Parker, Nathan Walker, Laura Ghigliotti, Jeong-Hoon Kim, Jeongseok Park, Cara Nissen, Elieen Hofmann, Michelle LaRue, Grant Ballard, Jack Pan, Alex Orona, John Weller, and Claire Christian