The recently launched OceanPrediction Decade Collaborative Centre (DCC) is taking its first important steps in the framework of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development 2021-2030, coordinated by IOC-UNESCO. OceanPrediction DCC is a cross-cutting structure that will work at the global scale to develop collaboration between Decade Actions related to ocean prediction together with relevant organisations’ structuring initiatives across Decade Challenges. IOC-UNESCO chose Mercator Ocean International to host and manage the Centre from Toulouse (France): MOi will provide a backbone collaboration structure and collective voice to the ocean prediction community, while building a global technical and organisational structure for ocean forecasting, based on the principles of accessibility, interoperability, and integration. The creation of OceanPrediction was announced by IOC/UNESCO and Mercator Ocean International in June 2022 during the United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon. Many achievements are already to his credit. 

A successful kick-off meeting gathering ocean communities world-wide 

The OceanPrediction DCC kick-off meeting took place in an all-virtual event from January 11 to 12, 2023. The meeting successfully gathered a wide range of profiles, including scientists, private companies, policymakers, and users coming from 120 countries, with about 1800 participants. The online platform provided virtual exhibits of Operational Forecasting Services and its applications, as well as networking features such as chats, business cards, posts, and surveys, allowing the community to meet and connect.  

The high-level sessions explained the vision and mission of the Centre thoroughly, providing perspectives from the various parties, including key messages from Vladimir Ryabinin (Executive Secretary on IOC-Unesco) and Timo Pesonen (EU Commission Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space). The event took place under the auspices of the two nations in charge of the next United Nations Ocean Conference, which will take place in France in 2025: Olivier Poivre d’Arvor (French Ambassador for the Poles & Maritime Issues, welcoming the OceanPrediction launch from Antarctica), Gina Guillen-Grillo (Director General of Foreign Policy Costa Rica). Among the speakers, numerous Early Career Ocean Professionals (ECOPs) from all the continents, welcomed the initiative. The event lasted two days to cover time zones around the world and included many specialized workshops. 

Watch the messages pulled from the OceanPrediction Kick-off meeting in the video above

A complete infrastructure to make OceanPrediction possible 

During the kick-off meeting, an OceanPrediction complete infrastructure, already under development, was described and presented. There are technical plans to develop a new scenario for ocean forecasting, a worldwide community to implement it, and capacity development and ocean literacy actions to make it accessible world-wide. 

An Ocean Forecasting Co-Design Team relying on ocean science expertise 

OceanPrediction gathered international specialists whose expertise covers the whole ocean forecasting value chain to form the so called “Ocean Forecasting Co-Design Team”. Their mission is to design an ocean forecasting architecture boosted by the Digital Twin concept, which will pave the way towards simpler, modular, and more robust system developments.  

The first steps towards this new architecture will be the definition of the required building blocks, that will take the form of Standards, Tools, and Best Practices: this activity will benefit all services and will have a particularly positive impact on the capabilities of organisations that are starting to develop their own activities surrounding ocean forecasting. 

Regional Teams collaborating from all over the world 

Key pillar of OceanPrediction, the Regional Teams are decentralised structures modelled on UNEP Regional Seas around each continent. They will be led by partner organisations promoting the development and use of ocean forecasting systems worldwide. They are crucial in identifying and gathering a wide community, including scientist, users, private sector, NGOs and more. The Regional Teams will support the Decade actions related to ocean forecasting, will enrich and support capacity building and ocean literacy services, and will advocate for the implementation of Best Practices, Standards and Tools. 

What are the next steps? 

The forthcoming weeks will see important developments in the formation of the local structure of the different Regional Teams, as well as the kick-off of each one of them. The Teams will be fed with ocean literacy and capacity development plans, but also polls to identify activities, potential gaps, and needs.  

OceanPrediction communication activities – currently centred on the Angage application – will take a leap on a soon-to-be-launched dedicated website, stay tuned! 

About Mercator Ocean International 

The six European States which signed the “Brest Declaration” in February 2022 to commit to transforming Mercator Ocean International into an intergovernmental organisation, continue their preparatory work. One of the major objectives of this organization is to become the world reference for the digital ocean to provide useful and relevant technical support to the states and institutions involved in the establishment of virtuous governance of the oceans, in particular to the European Union for its priority mission “Restore our oceans and waters by 2030”, of which the creation of the European Digital Twin of the Ocean is the second priority.

Important Links

• Enter the Kick-off meeting platform where you can find replays of all the presentations as well as booths, and a chance to interact with the OceanPrediction Community. Make an account to login:

• Watch all the Kick-off meeting presentations on replay on our YouTube playlist
• What is the OceanPrediction UN Decade Collaborative Centre?