Marine science driving the development
of Australia's blue economy
A New Decade (2025-2035)
The National Marine Science Committee (NMSC) has begun a process to develop a new national decadal strategy for marine science, and an associated plan to deliver on this strategy. This Strategy and Plan will follow on from the 2015-2025 Plan and an update and assessment of progress in the NMSC Midway report.
NMSC has designed this process to ensure that “The Strategy” is focussed on coordinating and delivering high- quality marine science to support priorities identified by intergovernmental processes (e.g., UN Sustainable Development Goals, Ocean Decade; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Conference of the Parties (COP), World Ocean Assessment (WOA),etc.), National and State governments (e.g., National Science and Research Priorities, Australia’s Sustainable Ocean Plan (SOP), etc.), industry peak bodies, NGOs, communities, and First Nations peoples.
This is a complex task, and we are counting on the broad science and end-user communities to collaboratively develop a strategy and plan we can collectively support.
Over the next months, we invite the marine science community and interested end-users to collaborate and contribute to the new National Marine Science Strategy (2025-2035) through:
Developing White Papers
from November 2024 focused on describing the science required to satisfy priority national end-user needs and maximize societal benefits and the best means to deliver this science.
Participating in the National Marine Science Symposium
in June 2025 to review the white papers and discuss priority recommendations for the NMSP.
Supporting the Official Launch
of the National Marine Science Strategy and Plan (NMSP) 2025-2035 at Parliament House, Canberra, in November 2025.
Developing the New National Marine Science Strategy (2025-2035)
In August 2024, NMSC leaders identified key Focal Areas to shape the new NMSS. These areas draw on national and international priorities, including the Sustainable Oceans Plan, the UN Ocean Decade, and the 2015 National Marine Science Plan review.
The Focus Areas are grouped into two themes: Challenges & Opportunities and Enablers.
Challenges and Opportunities
- Valuing and Incorporating First Nations traditional knowledge and management approaches
- Understanding Climate Systems to support mitigation and adaptation actions.
- Protecting Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health
- Enabling a Sustainable Blue Economy
- Planning Urban and Coastal Development, Infrastructure, and Services
- Maintaining Food Security
- Energy Security, Diversification, and achieving Net-Zero
- Optimizing Resource Allocation and Management
- Maintaining Sovereignty, Securing, and Defending Australia
- Safety at, and from, the sea (Natural Hazards and Early Warning Systems)
- Protecting Australia’s Cultural Heritage
- Climate and Green Engineering
- Integrated Ocean Management
- Ocean Accounting
- Ecosystem Restoration and Repair
Enablers
- Education, Training, Ocean Literacy
- Research Infrastructure
- Engineering, Prototyping, and Technology Development
- Robotics, Autonomy, and Automation
- AI and Machine learning
- Data through to information
- Omics, Synthetic Biology, and Biotechnology
- Modeling and Quantitative Science
- Understanding Marine Science and Society
Publications and resources
Explore the reports, white papers, presentations, submissions and strategies developed by the NMSC and its working groups.
NMSC Chair and Deputy
Chair: Dr John Gunn, Independent Chair
Deputy Chair: Dr Lyndon Llewellyn, Research Manager of the Australian Institute of Marine Science
NMSC secretariat
Dr. Rebecca Zitoun secretariat@marinescience.net.au
Documents and images
All documents on this site remain the property of the relevant authors. These documents should be cited if used in research or for other purposes.
All images on this website have been contributed by NMSC Members, or are fully licensed through Adobe Stock and Shutterstock.
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