SMMR attended the MASTS Annual Science Meeting in Glasgow, November 2025. This event included a special session, where the results and outputs from the Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources programme were shared, and an expert panel discussed the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary working.
During six years of pioneering research, scientists, policymakers, industries, and communities came together to address the urgent challenges facing our coasts and seas. From climate-smart planning and seagrass restoration to community resilience and inclusive governance, the SMMR Programme reshaped how the UK values and manages its marine resources.
Read more about the SMMR Programme via our Final Report.
Between 14th – 16th May 2024, we hosted the Third Annual Conference for the Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources (SMMR), focusing on the delivery of tools and interventions to inform policy, regulation and management. This transdisciplinary conference brought together members of the UK marine science community, funders, policy makers and practitioners.
The first day and the afternoon of the third day were devoted to workshops, whilst the second day and the morning of the third day brought together expert plenary speakers and contributed talks and posters outlining the latest research and management practices that address key topics related to the sustainable management of UK marine resources.
This workshop invited a discussion about the challenges of engaging diverse voices in research and policy consultations for sustainable management of UK marine resources. The SMMR Resilience of Coastal Communities project team shared their experiences of collecting oral histories, survey and interview data in sites across the Southwest UK with a particular focus on the challenges of including female and younger voices. The Diverse Marine Values project team also offered their insights into incorporating the diverse values and voices of other harder-to-reach groups. The workshop functioned to collate joint perspectives on blind-spots inadvertently introduced into research and consultation, the barriers to more inclusive research and engagement, and insights on strategies or best-practice that help address these challenges.
An inherent challenge of climate change research is the ability to communicate scientific information to non-specialist audiences. Tailoring information for various audiences, including policy makers and members of the public involves utilising a range of methods and techniques to ensure that the message is received effectively. This workshop aimed to synthesise the learning from the SMMR projects about the best strategies to communicate and engage with communities about coastal protection decisions, as well as to reflect more broadly on the experiences and expectations of researchers tasked with communicating and disseminating their research.
This workshop was the first in a series of actions designed to co-develop an ocean literacy strategy for England. Defined as ‘having an understanding of the ocean’s influence on your, and your influence on the ocean’, ocean literacy has been positioned as a key mechanism for change and central to achieving the goals set out by the UN Ocean Decade’s Ten Challenges. In the UK, we have seen ocean literacy increasingly at the forefront of discussions about ocean and coastal management, governance and research priorities. Drawing on the results from the 2022 UK-wide ocean literacy assessment as well as outputs from the Diverse Marine Values project, this workshop mapped existing ocean literacy activities and initiatives across England, identified current gaps and barriers and highlighted opportunities and priorities for the development of a co-designed strategy. Crucially, the workshop looked to the work that was already underway in Wales to develop a national ocean literacy strategy for Wales.
This workshop explored new horizons for marine research and management. The Diverse Marine Values researchers provided a guided tour of their exhibition, showcasing the full range of arts-based research methods they used to engage local communities in eliciting lesser-heard voices in Portsmouth, Chepstow and the Shetland Islands. They discussed how arts-based research methods can be used to enhance marine decision-making and ocean literacy through more inclusive and engaging processes. Within the backdrop of an immersive exhibition, this workshop helped researchers and practitioners explore the potential of arts-based methods, including digital storytelling, participatory theatre, photography, and community voice method. It also explored transdisciplinarity and ways of working differently in marine management and research settings.
The past SMMR Conferences have each demonstrated that a sustainable and resilient management of marine ecosystems can be achieved only through interdisciplinary approaches co-developed with stakeholders, recognising their respective diverse value. However, consistently capturing and synthesising the range of marine stakeholders’ values, attitudes, perspectives, and viewpoints on sustainable and resilient marine management is not a trivial task. Mixed quali-quantitative approaches such as the Q-method can help.
In this workshop, Pyramids of Life project members presented and discussed protocols and tools for designing, analysing and interpreting a Q-method. Participants were asked to take part in a Q-method which was then used to present the data preparation, analysis, and interpretation of results.
This workshop brought together stakeholders from the UK marine management community, restoration practitioners, economists and the finance sector to examine the opportunities and challenges of financing of marine habitat restoration, and thereby support the development of a road map towards broader adoption. Activities for the workshop were framed by examining some UK-specific case studies of financing nature restoration, both from terrestrial and marine spheres. The team examined the long-term feasibility of applying schemes such as carbon and biodiversity credits in the UK. Alternative finance frameworks that could be employed to harness private finance in the UK were also explored, and their potential utility assessed.
The Sustainable Management of UK Marine Resources Conference took place from 16th – 18th May 2023, in Bristol. Building on the success of our inaugural conference in 2022, this year’s event featured presentations, discussions, and workshops exploring the varied work underway in the SMMR programme, both from our funded project teams and across the SMMR Network.
Highlights from the conference were shared across social media under the hashtag – #SMMRConf23, and recordings of talks shared at the Conference may be found on our YouTube channel.